We study the Γ -convergence of functionals arising in the Van der Waals-Cahn-Hilliard theory of phase transitions. The corresponding limit is given as the sum of the area and the Willmore functional. The problem under investigation was proposed as modification of a conjecture of De Giorgi and partial results were obtained by several authors. We prove here the modified conjecture in space dimensions n = 2, 3.

Signaling molecules play an important role for many cellular functions. We investigate here a general system of two membrane reaction-diffusion equations coupled to a diffusion equation inside the cell by a Robin-type boundary condition and a flux term in the membrane equations. A specific model of this form was recently proposed by the authors for the GTPase cycle in cells. We investigate here a putative role of diffusive instabilities in cell polarization. By a linearized stability analysis we identify two different mechanisms. The first resembles a classical Turing instability for the membrane subsystem and requires (unrealistically) large differences in the lateral diffusion of activator and substrate. The second possibility on the other hand is induced by the difference in cytosolic and lateral diffusion and appears much more realistic. We complement our theoretical analysis by numerical simulations that confirm the new stability mechanism and allow to investigate the evolution beyond the regime where the linearization applies.

GTPase molecules are important regulators in cells that continuously run through an activation/deactivation and membrane-attachment/membrane-detachment cycle. Activated GTPase is able to localize in parts of the membranes and to induce cell polarity. As feedback loops contribute to the GTPase cycle and as the coupling between membrane-bound and cytoplasmic processes introduces different diffusion coefficients a Turing mechanism is a natural candidate for this symmetry breaking. We formulate a mathematical model that couples a reaction-diffusion system in the inner volume to a reaction-diffusion system on the membrane via a flux condition and an attachment/detachment law at the membrane. We present a reduction to a simpler non-local reaction-diffusion model and perform a stability analysis and numerical simulations for this reduction. Our model in principle does support Turing instabilities but only if the lateral diffusion of inactivated GTPase is much faster than the diffusion of activated GTPase.

The Allen-Cahn action functional is related to the probability of rare events in the stochastically perturbed Allen-Cahn equation. Formal calculations suggest a reduced action functional in the sharp interface limit. We prove the corresponding lower bound in two and three space dimensions. One difficulty is that diffuse interfaces may collapse in the limit. We therefore consider the limit of diffuse surface area measures and introduce a generalized velocity and generalized reduced action functional in a class of evolving measures.

We prove the convergence of phase-field approximations of the Gibbs-Thomson law. This establishes a relation between the first variation of the Van der Waals-CahnHilliard energy and the first variation of the area functional. We allow for folding of diffuse interfaces in the limit and the occurrence of higher-multiplicities of the limit energy measures. We show that the multiplicity does not affect the Gibbs-Thomson law and that the mean curvature vanishes where diffuse interfaces have collided. We apply our results to prove the convergence of stationary points of the Cahn-Hilliard equation to constant mean curvature surfaces and the convergence of stationary points of an energy functional that was proposed by Ohta-Kawasaki as a model for micro-phase separation in block-copolymers.