Uniform bound on the number of partitions for optimal configurations of the Ohta-Kawasaki energy in 3D

TL;DR

This paper proves a uniform upper bound on the number of components in minimizers of the 3D Ohta-Kawasaki energy for triblock copolymers, addressing a previously unresolved question about their structure.

Contribution

It establishes that the number of components in minimizers of the 3D Ohta-Kawasaki energy is bounded solely by total masses and interaction coefficients, a novel result in this context.

Findings

Number of components in minimizers is bounded by system parameters.

Addresses the challenge of coupling long-range interactions with perimeter in 3D.

Provides insights into the structure of minimizers in complex copolymer models.

Abstract

We study a 3D ternary system derived as a sharp-interface limit of the Nakazawa-Ohta density functional theory of triblock copolymers, which combines an interface energy with a long range interaction term. Although both the binary case in 2D and 3D, and the ternary case in 2D, are quite well studied, very little is known about the ternary case in 3D. In particular, it is even unclear whether minimizers are made of finitely many components. In this paper we provide a positive answer to this, by proving that the number of components in a minimizer is bounded from above by some quantity depending only on the total masses and the interaction coefficients. One key difficulty is that the 3D structure prevents us from uncoupling the Coulomb-like long range interaction from the perimeter term, hence the actual shape of minimizers is unknown, not even for small masses. This is due to the lack of a quantitative isoperimetric inequality with two mass constraints in 3D, and it makes the construction of competitors significantly more delicate.