Gamma-convergence of a gradient-flow structure to a non-gradient-flow structure

TL;DR

This paper investigates how a gradient flow system with a singular energy limit converges to a non-gradient variational evolution, revealing the transition from reversible to irreversible chemical reactions through Gamma-convergence analysis.

Contribution

It introduces a novel Gamma-convergence approach for energy-dissipation functionals to characterize the limit of gradient systems with singular energies, capturing non-gradient dynamics.

Findings

Limit of the system is a non-gradient variational evolution.

The process converges to a Markov process with one-directional jumps.

The approach models emergence of irreversible chemical reactions from reversible ones.

Abstract

We study the asymptotic behaviour of a gradient system in a regime in which the driving energy becomes singular. For this system gradient-system convergence concepts are ineffective. We characterize the limiting behaviour in a different way, by proving $\Gamma$-convergence of the so-called energy-dissipation functional, which combines the gradient-system components of energy and dissipation in a single functional. The $\Gamma$-limit of these functionals again characterizes a variational evolution, but this limit functional is not the energy-dissipation functional of any gradient system. The system in question describes the diffusion of a particle in a one-dimensional double-well energy landscape, in the limit of small noise. The wells have different depth, and in the small-noise limit the process converges to a Markov process on a two-state system, in which jumps only happen from the higher to the lower well. This transmutation of a gradient system into a variational evolution of non-gradient type is a model for how many one-directional chemical reactions emerge as limit of reversible ones. The $\Gamma$-convergence proved in this paper both identifies the `fate' of the gradient system for these reactions and the variational structure of the limiting irreversible reactions.