Well-posedness of a bulk-surface convective Cahn–Hilliard system with dynamic boundary conditions

Abstract

We consider a general class of bulk-surface convective Cahn–Hilliard systems with dynamic boundary conditions. In contrast to classical Neumann boundary conditions, the dynamic boundary conditions of Cahn–Hilliard type allow for dynamic changes of the contact angle between the diffuse interface and the boundary, a convection-induced motion of the contact line as well as absorption of material by the boundary. The coupling conditions for bulk and surface quantities involve parameters $$K,L\in [0,\infty ]$$ K , L ∈ [ 0 , ∞ ] , whose choice declares whether these conditions are of Dirichlet, Robin or Neumann type. We first prove the existence of a weak solution to our model in the case $$K,L\in (0,\infty )$$ K , L ∈ ( 0 , ∞ ) by means of a Faedo–Galerkin approach. For all other cases, the existence of a weak solution is then shown by means of the asymptotic limits, where K and L are sent to zero or to infinity, respectively. Eventually, we establish higher regularity for the phase-fields, and we prove the uniqueness of weak solutions given that the mobility functions are constant.