Phase Transition for Potentials of High-Dimensional Wells with a Mass-Type Constraint

TL;DR

This paper investigates the asymptotic behavior of energy minimizers in a high-dimensional potential well problem with a mass constraint, revealing how geometry influences the leading and higher-order energy terms as a parameter tends to zero.

Contribution

It extends previous work by analyzing the asymptotics of minimizers for a constrained energy functional with complex potential landscapes and geometric considerations.

Findings

Identifies the leading-order term in the energy expansion depending on domain geometry.

Provides estimates for higher-order energy terms under various geometric conditions.

Characterizes the convergence of minimizers in the L^1 sense as the parameter approaches zero.

Abstract

Inspired by Lin-Pan-Wang (Comm. Pure Appl. Math., 65(6): 833-888, 2012), we continue to study the corresponding time-independent case of the Keller-Rubinstein-Sternberg problem. To be precise, we explore the asymptotic behavior of minimizers as $\varepsilon\to0$, for the functional $$\mathbf{E}_\varepsilon(u)= \int_{\Omega}\left(|\nabla u|^{2}+\frac{1}{\varepsilon^{2}} F(u)\right) d x$$under a mass-type constraint $\int_{\Omega}\rho(u)\, dx=m$, where $\rho:\mathbb{R}^k \to \mathbb{R}\in Lip(\mathbb{R}^k)$ is specialized as a density function with $m$ representing a fixed total mass. The potential function $F$ vanishes on two disjoint, compact, connected, smooth Riemannian submanifolds $N^{\pm}\subset\mathbb{R}^k$. We analyze the expansion of $\mathbf{E}_\varepsilon(u_\varepsilon)$ for various density functions $\rho$, identifying the leading-order term in the asymptotic expansion, which depends on the geometry of the domain and the energy of minimal connecting orbits between $N^+$ and $N^-$. Furthermore, we estimate the higher-order term under different geometric assumptions and characterize the convergence $u_{\varepsilon_i}\to v $ in the ${L}^1$ sense.