Γ -convergence of the Allen Cahn energy with an oscillating forcing term

Interfaces and Free Boundaries 8 (2006), 47 78 Γ -convergence of the Allen Cahn energy with an oscillating forcing term N. DIRR Max-Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences, Inselstr. 22, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany M. LUCIA Department of Mathematics, Hill Center, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA AND M. NOVAGA Dipartimento di Matematica, Università di Pisa, Largo B. Pontecorvo 5, 56127 Pisa, Italy [Received 5 April 2005 and in revised form 21 September 2005] We consider a standard functional in the mesoscopic theory of phase transitions, consisting of a gradient term with a double-well potential, and we add to it a bulk term modeling the interaction with a periodic mean zero external field. This field is amplified and dilated with a power of the transition layer thickness leading to a nontrivial interaction of forcing and concentration when 0. We show that the functionals Γ -converge after additive renormalization to an anisotropic surface energy, if the period of the oscillation is larger than the interface thickness. Difficulties arise from the fact that the functionals have nonconstant absolute minimizers and are not uniformly bounded from below. 1. Introduction We briefly review some aspects of the classical theory of phase transitions. Given Ω R N, let u : Ω R be an order parameter, i.e. a function which describes to what extent the physical system at a given point x Ω is in the + or phase. Pure phases correspond to the two minimizers (for instance ±1) of a double-well potential W, which can be derived from atomistic considerations as a mean-field free energy, and whose main property is to be convex in a neighborhood of ±1. The resulting free energy functional is characterized by a competition between a gradient term, modeling interaction energy, and the potential W. Such a functional is given by M (u) := Ω { u 2 + W (u) } dx, u H 1 (Ω), (1.1) where > 0 is a small parameter related to the interface thickness. If the system is prevented from staying close to +1 or to 1 everywhere (for example by a volume constraint), then the thickness Supported by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and the Department of Mathematics of the University of Texas at Austin. E-mail: ndirr@mis.mpg.de E-mail: mlucia@math.rutgers.edu E-mail: novaga@mail.dm.unipi.it c European Mathematical Society 2006

48 N. DIRR ET AL. of the transition layer (i.e. the set separating the positive and negative regions) will be of order. Moreover, sequences of finite energy for 0 should converge to ±1 almost everywhere. A suitable mathematical setup to make this rigorous is the notion of Γ -convergence (see Section 2 for a precise definition). In [16, 15] the authors characterize the Γ -convergence of the family M with respect to the L 1 (Ω)-topology and they obtain a sharp interface limit, which is the area of the interface with surface tension c W (which is related to the double-well potential). More precisely, by setting c W := 1 1 W(t) dt and B := {u BV (Ω) : u(x) { 1, 1} a.e. in Ω}, they prove that the Γ -limit of the functionals in (1.1), extended by + to all L 1 (Ω), is given by M 0 (u) := { cw P (E, Ω) if u = χ E B, + if u L 1 (Ω) \ B. (1.2) This convergence could be perturbed by rapidly oscillating spatial inhomogeneities modeling for example the interaction with a substrate. The result will depend on whether the scale on which the inhomogeneities oscillate is of order of the interface thickness, smaller or larger. One way to introduce spatial inhomogeneities is to consider an x-dependent gradient term, i.e. replace the term u 2 in (1.1) by A(x/ α ) u 2, where A(x) is a positive definite symmetric matrix, periodically depending on x (a general version of this case is studied in [2]). In our paper, instead, the energy in (1.1) is perturbed by a strong, rapidly oscillating field with zero average. More precisely, we shall consider the functional { G (u) := u(x) 2 + W (u(x)) + 1 ( ) } x α g α u(x) dx, u H 1 (Ω), Ω where g L (R N ) is a periodic function with cell domain Q := ( 1/2, 1/2) N. This periodic term g has the effect of creating many local minima. Systems of this type are of relevance in materials science, e.g. the evolution of microstructures or the motion of magnetic walls. When α = 0, it follows from the results in [16, 15] (see also [9, Proposition 6.21]) that the Γ -limit is the sum of the functional (1.2) and the volume term g(x)u(x) dx. When α > 0, both amplitude and frequency of g become large as 0, hence the infimum of the functional over H 1 (Ω) can be negative or even converge to as 0 (for example when α > 1/2, see Proposition 3.9). Therefore, to fit in the framework of Γ -convergence, we need to introduce an additive renormalization. However, in order to get a nontrivial Γ -limit, we need the renormalization to be of the same order of the perimeter and this can happen only if Q g dx = 0. We show for 0 < α < 1 that the renormalized functionals Γ -converge to an anisotropic surface energy (see Theorem 2.3). There are similarities with the result in [2] but in many respects our setting requires new techniques. The main difficulties (beyond those encountered in [16, 15] and [2]) arise from this renormalization and the (related) facts that the functionals have nonconstant global minimizers whose energy is not uniformly bounded from below. To explain the main points, let us first note that the Euler Lagrange equation is u W (u) 2 = 1 2 α g ( ) x α on Ω, u = 0 n on Ω, (1.3)

Γ -CONVERGENCE OF ALLEN CAHN ENERGY 49 i.e. the function g appears as a forcing term. There are two solutions of (1.3): u +, close to +1, and u, close to 1 (see Proposition 3.7 and Corollary 3.8), which are local minimizers of the energy and which are nonconstant if g 0, whereas in the unperturbed case or in [2] one gets u + 1, u 1. As their energy is strictly negative, and typically is of order Ω 1 2α, the aforementioned additive renormalization is necessary. The appearance of such a renormalization is in fact quite natural for phase transition problems. The energy associated with an interface is the excess free energy due to the fact that more than one phase is present, so it is actually a difference of energies, determined only up to adding constants. If the pure phases, i.e. the global minimizers, are constants, then in order to ensure that the energy of the minimizers is zero, it is enough to choose min R W (u) = 0. In our case the minimizers are not constants, so we must compute their energy and show that it is proportional to the volume of the domain Ω (up to smaller order), as we want a local functional as Γ -limit. Moreover (again up to smaller order) the energy of u + and u must be the same. Conditions on W and g will ensure both these properties. Now we consider the different scalings, i.e. the oscillation of g in relation to the interface thickness. In this paper we treat rigorously the case of slow oscillations, i.e. 0 < α < 1, leaving the case α 1 to further investigation. Let γ : R [ 1, 1] be the unique increasing solution of 2γ = W (γ ) (1.4) which converges exponentially to ±1 at ±, and such that γ (0) = 0. If we perform the change of variables y = x α and let ũ(y) = u(x α ), (1.3) becomes 1 α ũ W (ũ) 2 1 α = 1 g(y). (1.5) 2 Then a formal asymptotic expansion for solutions of (1.5) gives ( ) ( d(y) ũ(y) = γ 1 α + 1 α ũ 1 σ (y), d(y) ) 1 α, y + o( 1 α ), where d(x) is the signed distance function from the zero-level set of ũ (which we assume to be a smooth hypersurface) and σ (y) := y d(y) d(y) is the proection of y onto {ũ = 0}. It follows that c W d(x) = g(x) on {ũ = 0}, which on the original scale becomes c W κ = 1 α g ( x α ), (1.6) where κ is the mean curvature of the zero-level set of u. Hence, for α < 1 the problem is related to singular homogenization for the prescribed mean curvature equation. Indeed, in this case there is a splitting of the Γ -limit into a more standard limit, similar to [16, 15] with a g-term which does not depend on, and a prescribed mean curvature problem (see Theorems 2.3 and 5.9). Equation (1.6) shows that the chosen relation between amplitude and frequency of the forcing term is interesting, since the interface will change its shape significantly within one unit cell. For a stronger amplitude we expect to see small bubbles everywhere, as the minimizers on a cell are no longer of constant sign, whereas for a weaker forcing the limit will be isotropic. Now we are able to summarize our results. Any sequence of bounded energy has a subsequence which converges in L 1 to a BV-function, which takes its values in { 1, 1}. The Γ -limit with respect

50 N. DIRR ET AL. to L 1 -convergence has the form E Ω ϕ(ν E ) dh N 1, (1.7) where E is a finite perimeter set on which lim u = 1 and ν is the unit normal to E. Thanks to the aforementioned splitting, the anisotropy ϕ can be explicitly characterized (see Theorem 5.9), and ϕ(ν) = ϕ( ν) and ϕ c W for any forcing term g satisfying certain bounds and a symmetry condition (see Proposition 5.11). Note that this is not a Γ -limit result for the functionals G but only for the renormalized functionals, since the functionals G typically converge to when α > 1/2 (see the comments after Proposition 2.2). Such a result is more in the spirit of a Γ -expansion, as recently investigated in [7]. We add a few comments on the case of fast oscillations, i.e. α 1. When α = 1, there is no splitting of scales as before, hence this case is more difficult. However, under possibly stronger conditions on g, we expect a similar Γ -convergence result to hold, and that the limit is still an anisotropic surface energy. For α > 1, we expect the limit functional to be isotropic, i.e. a multiple of the usual perimeter. The paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, we briefly review the theory of Γ -convergence, following [9]. Moreover, we state our assumptions on W and g, we define the renormalized functionals and we give a precise statement of the main result. In Section 3, we show the existence of the minimizers u ± and estimate the cost of having a transition within a cube. In Section 4, we show that any sequence with bounded energy has a subsequence converging in L 1 (Ω) to a BVfunction taking values only in { 1, 1}. Using the estimates of Section 3, we derive the so-called fundamental estimate, which is a localization property. We also show that the limit energy of our functionals concentrates on characteristic functions and is bounded from above and below by the area functional. General principles allow us to derive from these estimates a first Γ -limit theorem, which is valid up to a subsequence (see Proposition 4.11). In Section 5, we derive further properties of the limit functional and obtain, in particular, a representation formula (see Theorem 5.9), which implies that the Γ -limit is independent of the subsequence and of the scale parameter α. 2. Notation and main results Let N 2. We denote by A the class of all bounded open subsets of R N and by Q := ( 1/2, 1/2) N the open unit cube in R N centered at 0. For each E R N, the (shifted) characteristic function χ E of E and the (signed) distance function d E from E are defined respectively by: { { 1 if x E, dist(x, R χ E (x) := d 1 otherwise, E (x) := N \ E) if x E, dist(x, E) otherwise. Moreover, if E Ω A with χ E BV (Ω), we denote by P (E, Ω) the perimeter of E in Ω, and by E the reduced boundary of E (see [12]). Given u BV (Ω), we denote by Ω u the total variation of u in Ω, thus we have χ E = P (E, Ω) Ω for all E Ω of finite perimeter in Ω. Let also briefly recall the notion of Γ -convergence (see [9] for more details on this subect).

Γ -CONVERGENCE OF ALLEN CAHN ENERGY 51 DEFINITION 2.1 Let X be a metric space and let F : X R, > 0, be a family of functionals on X. We say that F Γ -converge to F : X R if the following conditions are satisfied: 1. for all x X and for all x x, (Γ -liminf inequality); 2. for all x X there exist x x such that (Γ -limsup inequality). lim inf F (x ) F 0 lim F (x ) = F 0 We recall the following fundamental property of Γ -convergence, which can be easily derived from Definition 2.1. PROPOSITION 2.2 If F Γ -converge to F in X, also the corresponding minimal values (or infima) converge. Moreover, if x is a minimizer of F and x x X, then x is a minimizer of F. Hence, the asymptotic behavior of minimizers of F can be partly understood by considering the Γ -limit of F. Notice also that the second assertion of Proposition 2.2 does not change if we modify the functionals F by adding a constant (renormalization), possibly depending on. Given Ω A and > 0, we consider the following functional: { u 2 + W(u) } ( ) 1 x dx + G (u, Ω) := Ω Ω α g α u dx if u H 1 (Ω), (2.1) + otherwise. We require that g and W satisfy the following assumptions: (H1) g L (R N ) is a periodic function with cell domain Q, satisfying Q g dx = 0; (H2) W Lip loc (R), W 0, W(s) = 0 iff s { 1, 1} and W (s) = W ( s); (H3) There exist δ 0 (0, 1) and C 0 > 0 such that W is strictly convex on the interval (1 δ 0, + ) and (H4) There exists ρ > 0 such that W(s) C 0 (s 1) 2, s (1 δ 0, 1 + δ 0 ), W(s) C 1 0 (s 1)2, s (1 δ 0, + ); W(1 + s) W ( 1 + s) = 0 whenever s < ρ; (H5) g(x 1,..., x i,..., x N ) = g(x 1,..., x i,..., x N ) for any i {1,..., N} (in this case we say that g is symmetric). A typical example of a function satisfying (H2) and (H3) but not (H4) is given by the doublewell potential defined by W(s) = (1 s 2 ) 2 /2. Assumption (H4) ensures that the two local minimizers around ±1, i.e. the pure phases, have exactly the same energy (hence they are both global minimizers of the energy). Without that condition, the Γ -limit could become trivial (equal to

52 N. DIRR ET AL. 0 or + ). We observe that (H4) is not necessary in order to get the Γ -limit result when α < 2/3 (see Remark 4.10), whereas it is necessary if α > 2/3. Notice also that assumption (H3) implies W (x) C 1 0 x 1 for x 1 δ 0, W (x) C 1 0 x + 1 for x 1 + δ 0. We will see that in general lim 0 inf H 1 (Ω) G (, Ω) = for α > 1/2, hence we shall introduce an additive renormalization for the functionals. Let R be the family of all sets of the form R = int( z I α {Q + z}), where I is a finite subset of Z N. Given Ω A and u L 1 (Ω), we define the renormalized functionals as sup F (u, Ω) := R R, R Ω 0 otherwise. {G (u, R) inf G (, R)} if {R R : R Ω} =, H 1 (R) Note that inf L 1 (Ω) F = 0 and since inf H 1 (R) G (, R) 0 (by comparison with constant functions), we also have F G. Our main result is the following: THEOREM 2.3 Let 0 < α < 1, let W satisfy assumptions (H2) and (H3), and let g satisfy (H1) and (H5). If α 2/3 we further assume (H4). Then there exists a constant c 0 = c 0 (W ) > 0 such that for any g satisfying g L N c 0, the Γ -limit (with respect to the L 1 -topology) of F (, Ω) exists for each Ω A with Lipschitz boundary. Furthermore, we have ϕ(ν E ) dh N 1 if u = χ E BV (Ω), Γ - lim F (u, Ω) = 0 E Ω (2.3) + otherwise, where ϕ : S N 1 (0, ), independent of α, satisfies (2.2) 0 < C ϕ(ν) c W for all ν S N 1, (2.4) for some constant C > 0, and its one-homogeneous extension { ϕ : R N x ϕ(x/ x ) if x = 0, [0, ), x 0 if x = 0, is convex. REMARK 2.4 The function ϕ can be computed as a limit of the averaged minimum energy on large boxes of the functional Fg A (χ E) := c W P (E, A) + g(x)χ E (x) dx, (2.6) A defined for each Borel set A Ω and each χ E BV (Ω) (see Theorem 5.9). REMARK 2.5 We point out that the results of this section can be generalized to functionals with an x-dependence in the gradient term (see also [6]), like for example { ( ) Ĝ (u, Ω) := x A 2 Ω β u + W (u) } ( ) 1 x dx + Ω α g α u dx, where α (0, 1), β 0 and A(x) is a positive definite symmetric matrix, periodically depending on x. (2.5)

3. Estimates for the minimizers Γ -CONVERGENCE OF ALLEN CAHN ENERGY 53 In the following, unless otherwise stated, we shall always take α (0, 1). As we are interested in a local Γ -limit, we ultimately have to show that the renormalization is proportional to Ω. This will be done by comparing with minimizers on a cube. We need the following definitions. DEFINITION 3.1 Let G (u, Ω) := Ω ( u 2 + W (u) ) dx + gu dx, u H 1 (Ω). (3.1) Ω Notice that, by the change of variables y = α x and setting v(y) = u( α y), for Ω R we obtain the identity G (u, Ω) = α(n 1) Ω := {y R N : α y Ω}, z Z N G 1 α(v, (z + Q) α Ω). (3.2) Thanks to condition (H5), in order to study the structure of minimizers of G on R, it is enough to analyze the minimizers on the cube with Neumann boundary conditions (which, again by condition (H5), are equivalent to periodic boundary conditions). Let us set c W := 1 1 W(t) dt, B := {u BV (Q) : u(x) { 1, 1} a.e.}, and consider the functional Fg Q c W P (E, Q) + gχ E dx if u = χ E B, (u) := Q + if u L 1 (Q) \ B. From the result of [15, 16] we have Γ -lim G (, Q) = F Q g. This fact gives some hint on the asymptotic behavior of the minimizers of the functionals G (, Q). To see this, let us recall the following isoperimetric inequalities [11, Section 5.6]. PROPOSITION 3.2 Let Ω A with Lipschitz boundary. Then there exists a constant I (Ω) > 0 such that 1. P (E, Ω) I (Ω)(min{ E, Ω \ E }) (N 1)/N for any E Ω; 2. Ω u 2I (Ω) u u N/(N 1) for any u BV (Ω), where u := Ω 1 Ω u. Based on this result, we can derive: PROPOSITION 3.3 Let Ω A with Lipschitz boundary. If g L N (Q) 2c W I (Q), then the minimizers of F Q g are given by u ±1. Proof. Since Fg Q (1) = Fg Q ( 1) = 0, it is enough to show Fg Q (u) 0 for all u B. We have c W u c W 2I (Q) u u N/(N 1), Q gu = g(u u) g N u u N/(N 1). Q Q

54 N. DIRR ET AL. Thus, F Q g (u) c W 2I (Q) u u N/(N 1) g N u u N/(N 1), = u u N/(N 1) (c W 2I (Q) g N ), and the last term is nonnegative by assumption. Proposition 3.3 implies that if the minimizers of G (, Q) exist and converge in L 1, they must converge to ±1. We need now to quantify this information, i.e. to obtain rates in. PROPOSITION 3.4 Assume (H1) to (H3). Then for any u H 1 (Ω) we have G (t u ( t), Ω) < G (u, Ω) t > 1 + C 0 g. (3.3) Proof. By setting Ω t := { u > t}, from (H2) and (2.2), we get G (u, Ω) G (t u ( t), Ω) 1 (W (u) W (t)) dx + g(u sgn(u)t) dx, Ω t Ω t 1 (W (t) g )( u t) dx, Ω t 1 (C 1 0 (t 1) g )( u t) dx, Ω t and the last expression is positive whenever t > 1 + C 0 g. The following definition introduces a cutting and reflection procedure, which gives a function u t assuming values only in one of the convex regions of the potential W. DEFINITION 3.5 Given u H 1 (Ω) and t > 0, we define { u t if {u > 0} u t 1 := 2 Ω, ( u t) if {u > 0} < 1 2 Ω. We are going to use this cutting procedure to give an estimate of the energy required to have a sign change of the function u. PROPOSITION 3.6 Let Ω A with Lipschitz boundary. Assume (H1) to (H3) and g < 1 2 C 1 0 δ 0. Then there exist a constant t 0 with max{ 1 2, 1 δ 0} < t 0 < 1 and ω 0 > 0 (t 0, ω 0 depending only on W) such that ( G (u, Ω) G (u t, Ω) ω 0 8 ) g t/2 L N P ({u < s}, Ω) ds (3.4) t 0 I (Ω) t/2 whenever u H 1 (Ω) and t (t 0, 1 2C 0 g ). Moreover, the inequality is strict if { u < t} > 0. Proof. Assume without loss of generality that {u > 0} Ω /2 and, in the light of Proposition 3.4, that u 2 t. Recall that W(u) = W ( u) and compute { } G (u, Ω) G (u t, Ω) = u 2 W (u) W (t) + + g(u t) dx { t<u<t} + 2 gu dx = G 1 + G 2 + G 3, {u t}

Γ -CONVERGENCE OF ALLEN CAHN ENERGY 55 where G 1 := G 2 := G 3 := { t u<t} { t<u<t} { t<u< t/2} ( ) u 2 W (u) W (t) + dx, 2 W(u) W (t) dx + g(u t) dx, 2 { t/2 u<t} g(u t) dx + 2 gu dx. {u t} Let us first observe that (H2) and (H3) imply the existence of a value t 0 (depending only on W) with max{1/2, 1 δ 0 } < t 0 < 1 such that, for all t (t 0, 1), we have W(s) W(t) + W (t)(s t) s > 1/2, (3.5) W(s) W(t) 0 s < t and inf s <1/2 {W (s) W (t 0)} > 0. (3.6) Let us also define ω 0 := inf s <1/2 2{W (s) W (t0 )}. 1. By using the Schwarz inequality and co-area formula, we estimate G 1 as follows: G 1 { t u<t} t/2 2{W(u) W (t)} u dx ω0 P ({u < s}, Ω)ds, (3.7) since inf s <t/2 2{W(s) W(t)} inf s <1/2 2{W (s) W (t0 )} = ω 0. 2. We show that G 2 0. Using (3.5), for all t 0 < t < 1 2C 0 g we get ( ) W (u) W (t) G 2 + g(u t) dx { t/2 u<t} 2 W (t) 2g (t u) dx { t/2 u<t} 2 C 1 0 (1 t) 2 g (t u) dx 0 (3.8) 2 { t/2 u<t} t/2 and G 2 > 0 if {u < t} > 0. 3. In order to estimate G 3, we use u 2 t and the Hölder inequality to get G 3 2t g dx + 2(2 t) g dx { t<u< t/2} {u< t} 4 g dx 4 g L N {u < t/2} (N 1)/N. (3.9) {u< t/2} From the fact that {u < s} is a nondecreasing function of s, and using Proposition 3.2 together with the assumption {u > 0} Ω /2, we get t 0 2 {u < t/2} (N 1)/N {u < s} (N 1)/N ds 1 0 P ({u < s}, Ω) ds. t/2 I (Ω) t/2

56 N. DIRR ET AL. Therefore, (3.9) gives G 3 8 t g L N I (Ω) 0 t/2 P ({u < s}, Ω) ds 8 t 0 g L N I (Ω) 4. Finally, from (3.7), (3.8) and (3.10) we obtain G 1 + G 2 + G 3 0 t/2 ( ω 0 8 ) g t/2 L N P ({u < s}, Ω) ds. t 0 I (Ω) t/2 Moreover (3.8) implies that the inequality is strict if {u < t} > 0. P ({u < s}, Ω) ds. (3.10) In the following proposition, we show that the functional G admits global minimizers which are close to +1 or 1 of an order (see [13] for a similar result in the case of minimizers of (1.1) with a volume constraint). PROPOSITION 3.7 Let Ω A with Lipschitz boundary. Assume (H1) to (H3) and g < (1/2)C 1 0 δ 0. Then: 1. The functional (3.1) admits a global minimizer u in H 1 (Ω). 2. Let H± 1 (Ω) := {u H 1 (Ω) : ±u 0 a.e. in Ω}. Then there exist positive constants c 0 (Ω, W ), C 1 (Ω, W) and 0 (Ω, W) such that for g L N c 0 any global minimizer u must be contained in H+ 1 or H 1. Moreover, any minimizer u± H ± 1 has the following property: u + 1 C 1, u + 1 C 1 for < 0. Since the restriction of G (, Ω) to B δ 0 (+1) (respectively to B δ 0 ( 1)) is convex, Proposition 3.7 implies COROLLARY 3.8 Let Ω A with Lipschitz boundary. Assume (H1) to (H3), and g L N c 0 (W, Ω). Then for any such that g < C 1 0 δ 0, the functional G (, Ω) has exactly one absolute minimizer u + in H + 1 (Ω) and one absolute minimizer u in H 1 (Ω). Moreover, there exists t 0 (1 δ 0, 1) such that for all u H 1 (Ω) we have t0 G (u, Ω) min( G (u +, Ω), G (u /2, Ω)) C P ({u < s}, Ω) ds. (3.11) If W satisfies (H4), we also have u + = 2 + u and G (u +, Ω) = G (u, Ω), and u± are the only global minimizers of G on H 1 (Ω). Proof of Proposition 3.7. The existence of a global minimizer follows from classical results (see for example [9, Theorem 2.6]). From Proposition 3.4 we see immediately that the global minimizer u fulfills u 1 + C or u 1 C for some C depending only on Ω and W. Assume now without loss of generality that {u > 0} Ω /2. Proposition 3.6 tells us that for a minimizer there exists a t with 1 δ 0 < t < 1 such that { t/2 < u < t} = 0. Moreover it implies that P ({u < s}, Ω) = 0 for some s ( t/2, t/2). Hence the isoperimetric inequality implies that also {u < t/2} = 0 is empty. Therefore u (x) (1 δ 0, 1 + δ 0 ) almost everywhere. t 0 /2

Γ -CONVERGENCE OF ALLEN CAHN ENERGY 57 PROPOSITION 3.9 Assume (H1) to (H3) with g 0. Then 0 > min { G (, Q)} 2C 0 g 2 H 1. (3.12) (Q) Moreover, let Ω A. Then, for any (, α) and any R R with R Ω, we have In particular, as 0, 0 > min {G (, R )} 2 Ω C 0 g 2 H 1 1 2α. (3.13) (R ) { o(1) if α (0, 1/2), min {G (, R )} = H 1 (R ) O(1) if α = 1/2. (3.14) If α > 1/2, there exists R R, R Ω, such that lim min 0 H 1 (R ) {G (, R )} =. Proof. Let v be a positive global minimizer of G on H 1 (Q). By Propositions 3.4 and 3.7 we know that v 1 2C 0 g. This estimate, together with the assumption that g is of average zero on Q, yields G (v, Q) gv dy g v 1 2C 0 g 2. Q This proves (3.12). Now, note that the number of cubes of size α contained in R is equal to R / αn. Hence, by using (3.2), for each u H 1 (R ) we get G (u, R ) R αn α(n 1) min G 1 α(, Q) = R H 1 (Q) α min G 1 α(, Q). (3.15) H 1 (Q) Hence, from (3.15), (3.12) and the fact that R Ω, we derive (3.13). Consider now the case α > 1/2. Choose a function v Cc 1(Q) such that Q gv dx < 0 (which is always possible if g 0) and extend it periodically on R N. Consider R R with R Ω /2. Then, using (3.2) as before, we get ( ) x G (1 + 1/2 v ), α R = R G α 1 α(1 + 1/2 v, Q) Ω ( 2(1 α) v 2 + C 0 v 2 + 1/2 α gv) dx 2 Q as 0. The previous proposition shows that F and G have the same Γ -limit whenever α < 1/2 and so the renormalization is not needed in this case, whereas the functionals G typically converge to when α > 1/2. We give the following definition in order to express the additive renormalization in a more convenient way. DEFINITION 3.10 1. Let u ± 1 α denote the minimizer of G 1 α on H 1 (Q) {±u 0}. 2. Let c := α inf v H 1 (Q) G 1 α(v, Q).

58 N. DIRR ET AL. PROPOSITION 3.11 Assume (H1) to (H3). If furthermore (H5) holds, i.e. if g is symmetric, then the functions which minimize min H 1 (Q) G (, Q) are periodic. Moreover, if (H4) holds then min G (, R) = R H 1 (R) G α 1 α(u ±, Q) = R c 1 α. Moreover, the functional F is additive on disoint sets contained in R. Proof. Denote by Hp 1(Q) the class of periodic H 1 -functions on the unit cube. Recall that the minimizers u + (resp. u ) are unique in the class of positive (resp. negative) H 1 - functions. By symmetry of g, u + (x 1,..., x i,... x n ) is also a minimizer and thus equal to u +. The same holds for u. In particular the traces of u ± on opposite facets of the cube coincide, so u ± Hp 1(Q). 4. Γ -convergence In this section, we establish the Γ -convergence of the functionals F for 0. In order to proceed, we need to distinguish between cubes in which a function u is mostly positive and those in which u is mostly negative. DEFINITION 4.1 Given (R, u) R H 1 (R ), we define Z + Z R ± := {z ZN : α (Q + z) R, {u > 0} α (Q + z) 1 2 α (Q + z) }, := {z ZN : α (Q + z) R, {u > 0} α (Q + z) < 1 2 α (Q + z) }, := α (Q + z). z Z ± Using the notation introduced in the above definition, we show: LEMMA 4.2 There exists C > 0 such that for any (R, u) R H 1 (R ), the following holds: {u 1/2} R + + {u 1/2} R Cα F (u, R ), (4.1) { W(u) + u ( )} x α g α dx C{F (u, R ) + R 1 2α }, (4.2) R W(u) R dx C{F (u, R ) + R 1 2α }. (4.3) Proof. We first show (4.1). By setting v(x) = u( α x), we have F (u, R + ) (N 1)α { G 1 α(v, z + Q) G 1 α(u +, z + Q)}. (4.4) z Z + Lemma 3.8 and the isoperimetric inequality applied to (4.4) yield F (u, R + ) C(N 1)α {v 1/2} (z + Q) (N 1)/N. (4.5) z Z +

Using, in the relation above, the inequality Γ -CONVERGENCE OF ALLEN CAHN ENERGY 59 m m A i max { A i 1/N } A i (N 1)/N i {1,...,m} i=1 (holding for any m N and any A 1,..., A m R), we derive F (u, R + ) C(N 1)α {v 1/2} (z + Q) = C α {u 1/2} R +. z Z + Hence, arguing in the same way on R, we finally derive R i=1 α F (u, R ± ) C {u 1/2} R ±. (4.6) Now, (4.6) together with F (u, R ) F (u, R + ) + F (u, R ) implies (4.1). To prove (4.2) and (4.3), we will show { W(u) + u ( )} x 2 α g α dx C{F (u, R ) + R 1 2α }. (4.7) First let us introduce the notation B ± := {x R± : ±u (x) < 1/2}. (4.8) We note that by (H2) and (H3) we can find a constant c with 0 < c < C 1 0 such that W (u) c(u 1) 2 for u [ 1/2, ). Moreover, there exist C, 0 > 0 such that Hence R + { W(u) + u 2 = W(u) 2 ( x α g α R + \B + R + \B + ( ) x + 1 α (u 1)g > 0 for u > C, < 0. α )} { W (u) dx = + u 1 R + 2 α { W(u) + u 1 ( )} x 2 α g α dx + { c(u 1) 2 + u 1 ( x α g α ( x g α )} dx { W (u) B + 2 )} dx C α g B + + u 1 ( )} x α g α dx 1 g ) 2 R+ (1 α C g α F (u, R ) α (by 4.1) 4c C {F (u, R + ) + R+ 1 2α }. (4.9) The corresponding estimate holds for R as well and so we get (4.7). From (4.7), we derive immediately (4.2). Furthermore, since the renormalization per unit volume c is negative, using (4.7) we can estimate { 1 W(u) W (u) dx F (u, R ) + u ( )} x 2 R R 2 α g α dx C{F (u, R ) + R 1 2α }.

60 N. DIRR ET AL. As a first step we show that the Γ -limit (if it exists) concentrates exactly on the class of characteristic functions of sets of finite perimeter. PROPOSITION 4.3 Let Ω A and u L 1 (Ω) be such that lim sup 0 F (u ) <. Then: (a) If u n u in L 1 (Ω) for any subsequence n 0, then u = 1 a.e. in Ω; (b) There exists a subsequence n 0 and u BV (Ω) with u = 1 a.e. in Ω such that u n u L 1 loc (Ω) 0. Moreover, there exists C := C(W, g) > 0 such that Ω u C lim inf n 0 F n (u n, Ω). (4.10) Proof. Let R R be such that F (u, Ω) = F (u, R ). (a) From Lusin s and Egoroff s Theorems (see [11]), we deduce the existence of a compact set K Ω such that (up to a subsequence) K = 0, u K continuous, u n u in L (K). Since u 1 we can further assume the existence of a constant η > 0 such that un (x) 1 η > 0 x K, n N. Letting now c := min s 1 η W(s) > 0, for n large enough we have F n (u n, Ω) G n (u n ) c K n (b) By referring to Definition 4.1, we set We shall show that Set σ (u, z) = K g α n W (u n ) + 1 n n α u +. { 1 if z Z +, 1 if z Z, [H u ](x) = Ω Ω ( ) x g n α u n { 1 if x R +, 1 if x R. (4.11) u H u L 1 (R ) 0 (as 0) and H u BV (R ) C. (4.12) B,δ := {x R : u (x) < 1 δ} (δ > 0). Note that for 0 < δ 1, u H u L 1 (R ) δ R + 3( B + + B ) + 2 B,δ + 2 { u >1+δ} u dx. By applying Lemma 4.2, we get B + + B Cα and so B + + B 0. By (H2), (H3) and the bound on the energy ( ) lim B,δ + u dx = 0, 0 { u >1+δ}

Γ -CONVERGENCE OF ALLEN CAHN ENERGY 61 we then obtain the first statement in (4.12). To prove the second one, we note that, by construction, the total variation of H u can be estimated by R [H u ] (N 1)α 4 z i z =1 σ (z i ) σ (z ) 2. Now consider a pair of cubes Q i := α (z i + Q) (i = 1, 2) such that (z 1, z 2 ) Z + Z and z 1 z 2 = 1 (i.e. the cubes are adacent). By setting C := int(q 1 Q 2 ), we claim that there exists C > 0 such that F (u, C) C (N 1)α. (4.13) Case 1: Q 1 {0 < u < 1/2} > Q 1 /4 or Q 2 {0 < u < 1/2} > Q 2 /4. In such a case, (H3) implies there exists a constant c such that the union of the two cubes contributes at least c Nα 1 c (N 1)α to the energy. Case 2: C {u > 1/2}, C {u < 1/2} Q 1 Q 2 /8. In this case, as in the proof of Lemma 4.2, by applying (3.11) (on two adacent cubes C) and the isoperimetric inequality (Proposition 3.2), we deduce the existence of a constant c > 0 such that ( ) 1 (N 1)/N G(u, C) inf G(, C) c H 1 (C) 8 Nα. Hence each such C contributes at least c α(n 1) to the energy. Since each cube has 2N nearest neighbors, we get R [H u ] CF (u, R ). Therefore H u is bounded in BV and so it has a subsequence converging strongly in L 1 to a function u BV. As a consequence of the lower semicontinuity of the BV -norm with respect to L 1 -convergence we obtain K [H u ] CF (u, Ω) for any compact set K Ω. Now (4.10) follows by letting K Ω. By (4.12), the corresponding subsequence of the original sequence u converges to u as well. The fact that the Γ -limit is a measure relies on the following proposition, which is the so-called fundamental estimate [9]. Notice that in our case the proof is quite different from the usual one, due to the fact that G is not positive. PROPOSITION 4.4 Assume (H1) (H3) and (H5). For any U, U, V A, U U, and for any u, v L 1 loc (RN ) there exists a function ϕ C (R N, [0, 1]) such that and ϕ = 1 on U, ϕ = 0 on R N \ U, ϕ C 1, F (ϕu + (1 ϕ)v, U V ) F (u, U ) + F (v, V ) + δ (u, v, U, U, V ), (4.14) where δ has the property that lim 0 δ (u, v, U, U, V ) = 0 whenever u v L 1 (S) 0, S := (U \ U) V, sup{f (u, U ) + F (v, V ) + u + v } <. (4.15)

62 N. DIRR ET AL. REMARK 4.5 Assumption (4.15) is stronger than the one made in [9], since we also require u and v to be bounded in L (R N ). However, from hypothesis (H3) it follows that we can assume that a Γ -realizing sequence is bounded in L, hence the Γ -limit does not change if we redefine F + outside a suitable ball of L (R N ). Let us define a sequence of strips as follows. Set U 0 := U and define by recurrence for each i N: Z i := {z Z N : α (Q + z) U, dist( α (Q + z), U i ) α /2}, U i+1 := z Z i α (Q + z), S i := (U i+1 \ U i ) V. (4.16) The proof is split in three parts. We start with the following result whose proof is more general than needed, so that it can easily be modified for the case α 1. LEMMA 4.6 Let U, U, V, u and v be as in Proposition 4.4. Assume there exist some S i0 defined by (4.16), S S i0 (S i0, S = ) and ϕ C (R N, [0, 1]) such that F (u, S i0 ) + F (v, S i0 ) 0, (4.17) u v u v S i0 α dx + dx 0, (4.18) S W (u ) + W (v ) dx 0, (4.19) S i0 \ S u v 2 dx 0, { u 2 + v 2 } dx C, (4.20) S i0 S i0 supp( ϕ) S, ϕ = 1 on U i0, ϕ = 0 on R N \ U i0 +1, ϕ C 1, (4.21) where C is independent of. Then lim 0 F (ϕu + (1 ϕ)v, S i0 ) = 0. Proof. In order to simplify notation, we shall write u, v instead of u, v and set z := ϕu+(1 ϕ)v. We have F (z, S i0 ) = F (u, S i0 ) + {G (z, S i0 ) G (u, S i0 )} { ( ) } = F (u, S i0 ) + ( z 2 u 2 W (z) W (u) x z u ) + + g α α dx S i0 = F (u, S i0 ) + I 1 + I 2 + I 3. By (4.17), F (u, S i0 ) 0 while (4.18) implies I 3 0 (as 0). For I 2 we use the fact that W Lip loc, i.e. (H2), together with the inequality u + v C and the definition of z to get the estimate W(z) W(u) S i0 u v W (u) + W (v) dx C dx + dx. S S i0 \ S Assumptions (4.18) and (4.19) imply that this vanishes as 0.

Γ -CONVERGENCE OF ALLEN CAHN ENERGY 63 In order to estimate I 1, note that z u = ϕ(u v) + (1 ϕ)[ (v u)] and z + u = ϕ(u v) + u + v ϕ[ (v u)], so we estimate ( z 2 u 2 ) C[ 1/2 u v 2 L S 2 ( S) + 3 1/2 u v L 2 ( S) i0 1/2 ( u + v ) L 2 (S i0 ) + 1/2 u v L 2 (S i0 ) 1/2 ( u + v ) L 2 (S i0 )]. (4.22) The bound u + v C allows us to estimate the L 2 -norm by the L 1 -norm, therefore the first term in (4.22) vanishes as 0 by (4.18), the second by (4.18) and (4.20), and the third by (4.20). LEMMA 4.7 Under the assumptions of Proposition 4.4 we can find sets S i0, S and a function ϕ which fulfill the assumptions of Lemma 4.6. Proof. Since U U, we can assume U, U R. Consider then the family of S i defined by (4.16). Denote by k the largest integer for which S i = and note that k = O( α ). As the functional is increasing on sets in R, the bound on the energy (4.15) allows us to assume that F (u, S) + F (v, S) C. Since the functional is additive on disoint sets in R (see Proposition 3.11) and k i=0 S i S, we get k i=0 {F (u, S i ) + F (v, S i )} F (u, S) + F (v, S) C. As all terms in the sum are nonnegative, we find that for 2/3 of the indices i, F (u, S i ) + F (v, S i ) 3C 2k = C α. (4.23) Such strips satisfy (4.17). The argument used above will be referred to as averaging argument. This averaging argument shows in addition that for 2/3 of the indices i, u v C α u v. (4.24) S i S Hence we can find at least one strip S i0 which fulfills both (4.23) and (4.24). There exists a constant C 1 such that this strip is the disoint union of at least C 1 α 1 strips of the form (4.25) below. So another averaging argument yields a strip S S i0 of the form S = {x U : ( 1) dist(x, U i0 ) } V for some N, (4.25) in which we have S u v C 1 1 α ( C α S ) u v = C u v. (4.26) S As u v L 1 (S) 0, estimates (4.24) and (4.26) imply (4.18). Furthermore (4.3), (4.23) and S i0 C α imply (4.19). Moreover using the fact that the renormalization is negative, (4.2) together with (4.23) gives { u 2 + v 2 } 0, S i0

64 N. DIRR ET AL. which implies (4.20). Finally, from the definition of S given in (4.26), it is also possible to construct a function ϕ satisfying (4.21). Proof of Proposition 4.4. Let i 0, S i0 and ϕ be as in Lemmas 4.6 and 4.7. Since the functionals F are additive, setting z := ϕu + (1 ϕ)v we have F (z, U V ) = F (z, (U V ) U i0 ) + F (z, (U V ) (R N \ U i0 +1)) + F (z, (U V ) (U i0 +1 \ U i0 )) = F (u, (U V ) U i0 ) + F (v, (U V ) (R N \ U i0 +1)) + F (z, (U V ) (U i0 +1 \ U i0 )) F (u, U ) + F (v, V ) + F (z, S i0 ). By Lemma 4.6, F (z, S i0 ) 0 as 0, whenever (4.15) holds. In the following, we provide some estimates from above and from below for the Γ -limit, which are useful in order to represent the limit as an integral functional. PROPOSITION 4.8 Assume that (H1) to (H5) hold and that g is as in Proposition 3.7. Then there exists a constant C 3 > 0 such that Γ - lim inf F (χ E, Ω) C 3 P (E, Ω) Ω A, E Ω. (4.27) Proof. Let n 0 and let u n χ E in L 1 (Ω). Without loss of generality, we may assume that lim inf n F n (u n, Ω) <, hence there exists a subsequence n k such that lim F nk (u nk, Ω) = lim inf F k n n (u n, Ω) <, and u nk χ E L 1 0. Now, (4.10) implies that there exists a C > 0 such that χ E C lim F nk (u nk, Ω) k Ω for a further subsequence (still denoted by n k ). However, by construction, which proves the claim. C lim k F nk (u nk, Ω) = C lim inf n F n (u n, Ω), PROPOSITION 4.9 Assume that (H1) to (H5) hold. Then there exists a constant C 2 > 0 such that for any Ω A with Lipschitz boundary and for any E Ω, we have Γ - lim sup F (χ E, Ω) C 2 P (E, Ω). (4.28) Proof. By approximating E with regular sets E k such that P (E k, Ω) converges to P (E, Ω), we can assume that E Ω is a smooth hypersurface. To prove (4.28) it is enough to choose n 0 and construct a sequence of functions u n H 1 (Ω) such that u n χ E in L 1 (Ω) and lim sup F n (u n, Ω) C 2 P (E, Ω). n

Γ -CONVERGENCE OF ALLEN CAHN ENERGY 65 Let R n R n be such that F n (v, Ω) = F n (v, R n ) for all v H 1 (Ω). By Proposition 3.11, this is the maximal R R n which is contained in Ω. The renormalization is given by R n c. Define A 0 n := {z ZN : α n (Q + z) R n, dist( α n (Q + z), E) < 2α n }, A ± n := {z ZN : ±d E ( α z) 0, dist(n α (Q + z), E) 2α n }, Σ n := α (z + Q), R n ± := α (z + Q). z A 0 n z A ± n Consider the positive, periodic minimizer u + of G 1 α 1 α(, Q) on the unit cube. Assumption (H4) implies that the positive and the negative global minimizers differ by the constant 2. We extend u + periodically to R N and denote the extended function by u + as well. Consider an even cutoff function Φ C (R), increasing on [0, ) and such that Φ(r) 1 α = 0 if r < 1, and Φ(r) = 1 if 1 α r > 2. We denote by γ the unique strictly increasing function, asymptotic at ± to the two stable zeroes ±1 of W, and satisfying (1.4) with γ (0) = 0. Let δ 3 be a fixed natural number such that, if we let x := δ log, then γ (±x ) = ±1 + O( 2δ ) and γ (±x ) = O( 2δ ). Following [3], we consider a function γ C 1,1 (R) C (R \ {±x, ±2x }) which coincides with γ on [ x, x ] and assumes the asymptotic values ±1 outside the interval ( 2x, 2x ). Then the sequence ( u n (x) := γ n d ) E(x) + Φ n ( de (x) α n )( ( ) ) x u + n 1 α n α 1 (4.29) satisfies u n = u ± (x/ α n 1 α n ) on R± n, if (H4) holds. Since E is regular, there exists a constant C = C(N) such that lim sup n Σ n α n CP (E, Ω). Let v n + (x) := u+ (x/ α n 1 α n ). Then the renormalization is given by G n (v n +, R n). Recalling (3.13), it follows that there exists a constant C(W ) > 0 such that G n (v n, Σ n ) CP (E, Ω) 1 α n + ω n, where ω n is such that lim n ω n n α 1 = 0. As the periodic minimizer u + is bounded in L, we may assume that u 1 α n 2. Then we get F n (u n, Ω) = G n (u n, R n ) G n (v n, R n ) = G n (u n, Σ n ) G n (v n, Σ n ) ( n u n 2 + W (u ) n) dx + 1 ( x Σ n Σ n n ( n u n 2 + W (u n) n α n Σ n g α n ) dx + C g P (E, Ω), where C is a constant depending only on N. Therefore, recalling [15, 16] we get ) u n dx + C 1 α n lim sup F n (u n ) (c W + C g )P (E, Ω). n

66 N. DIRR ET AL. REMARK 4.10 Notice that if we drop (H4), we can still show that Proposition 4.9 holds whenever α < 2/3. Indeed, thanks to (H2), (H3) and Proposition 3.7 we get G 1 α(u + 1 α, Q) G 1 α(u 1 α, Q) C 2(1 α) for some C > 0, which implies that there exists a constant c 0 with lim sup α c < such that min G (, R) = R H 1 (R) G α 1 α(u ±, Q) = R (c 1 α + C 2 3α ) = R c + o(1). (4.30) Hence we can conclude as above. On the other hand, if α > 2/3 we cannot in general drop (H4) in order to avoid a Γ -limit which is always in {0, + }. Indeed, if W C 3 (R), the asymptotic expansion for u ± shows that u (x) u + (x) = 2(1 α) W (1) (W (1)) 3 g2 (x) + o( 2(1 α) ), hence estimate (4.30) is sharp for a general smooth potential. Once we have both the fundamental estimate and the estimates from above and below, we can reason as in [2, Theorem 3.3] to get the following result. PROPOSITION 4.11 Assume (H1) to (H5). Then there exists a local functional F 0 : L 1 loc (RN ) A [0, ] and a subsequence of functionals F n (, Ω) which Γ -converge to F 0 (, Ω) for any Ω A with Lipschitz boundary. Moreover, for any u BV loc (R N ; { 1, 1}), F 0 (u, ) is the restriction to A of a regular Borel measure. 5. Representation theorem and properties of the Γ -limit In this section we derive further properties of the Γ -limit. Throughout this section we shall always assume that (H1) (H5) hold, and that g L N c 0 with c 0 as in Proposition 3.7. Let us first introduce the following notation. DEFINITION 5.1 Let u ± be the periodic extensions of the minimizers of G (, Q), let Φ and γ be as in the proof of Proposition 4.9, and let Q ν be a unit cube centered at the origin with two of its faces orthogonal to ν. We set H (ν, x) := {y R N : y x, ν 0}, χ ν,x := χ H (ν,x), Q ν,x ρ := x + ρq ν, ) ) + Φ(d H (ν,x) )(u +. ( u ν,x dh (ν,x) (y) := γ ( y (y) 1), uν,x,α (y) := uν,x 1 α α Observe that χ ν,x is the characteristic function of a half-space orthogonal to ν and centered at x, and u ν,x (y) is an interpolation between the two absolute minimizers across the hyperplane orthogonal to ν. Recalling [4, Theorem 3] (see also [2, Theorem 3.5]), we obtain a representation result for the functional F 0.

Γ -CONVERGENCE OF ALLEN CAHN ENERGY 67 THEOREM 5.2 There exists a function ϕ : R N S N 1 (0, ) such that ϕ(x, ν E (x)) dh N 1 if χ E BV (Ω), F 0 (χ E, B) = E B + otherwise, for any Ω A with Lipschitz boundary and any Borel set B Ω. Moreover the function ϕ satisfies C 3 ϕ(x, ν) C 2, ϕ(x, ν) = lim sup ρ 1 N m(ρ, x, ν), (5.1) ρ 0 + where C 2, C 3 > 0 are as in Propositions 4.9 and 4.8, while m(ρ, x, ν) is defined by m(ρ, x, ν) := min{f 0 (u, Q ν,x ρ ) : u = χ ν,x in R N \ Q ν,x ρ }. (5.2) Relation (5.1) looks slightly different from the formula in [4], but, because of the choice of closed cubes, (5.1) is implied by the result in [4]. More information on ϕ can be extracted from the representation formula (5.1), like x-independence, convexity and a more explicit representation. To this end, we need two lemmas which allow us to neglect boundary effects. Let us choose a function u ν,x ρ which solves the minimizing problem defined by (5.2), namely F 0 (u ν,x ρ, Qν,x ρ ) = m(ρ, x, ν). (5.3) LEMMA 5.3 Given x R N, there exists a countable set E x R such that, for any ρ > 0 with ρ / E x, there exists a sequence η n ρ, η n < ρ, such that F 0 (u ν,x ρ, Qν,x ρ ) = lim F 0(u ν,x n η n, int(q ν,x ρ )). Proof. Fix (ν, x) S N 1 R N and fix R > 0. To simplify notation, we set Q ρ := Q ν,x ρ and u ρ := u ν,x ρ for all ρ > 0. Let g R : (0, R) [0, ), η F 0 (u η, Q R ). Then g R is a decreasing function on the interval (0, R), hence it has a countable set of discontinuities, E R. Notice that for R 1 R 2 the two functions g R1 and g R2 differ by a constant on (0, R 1 ). Hence E R1 E R2 whenever R 1 R 2. So E x = R>0 E R is countable, and the claim follows. LEMMA 5.4 Let u ν,x ρ be as in (5.3). For all x R N and ρ > 0, ρ / E x, there exist a sequence η ρ, with η < ρ, and a sequence of functions u u ν,x ρ in L 1 (Q ν,x ρ ) such that u Hloc 1 (RN ), u = u ν,x,α on RN \ Q ν,x (ρ+η )/2, and F 0 (u ν,x ρ, Qν,x ρ ) = lim F (u, Q ν,x ρ ). (5.4) Proof. As in the proof of the previous lemma, we simplify the notation by dropping the dependence of sets and functions on x and ν. By Lemma 5.3 we can find a sequence η k ρ, η k < ρ, such that F 0 (u ρ, Q ρ ) = lim k F 0(u ηk, Q ρ ),

68 N. DIRR ET AL. where u ηk = χ ν,x on R N \ Q ηk. For any k, we consider a Γ -realizing sequence w k, u ηk such that F 0 (u ηk, Q ρ ) = lim F (w k,, Q ρ ). By Proposition 4.4, applied with U = Q ηk, U = Q (ρ+ηk )/2, V = Q ρ \ Q ηk and u = w k,, v = u ν,x,α, there exists a cut-off function ϕ between U and U. Letting u k, := ϕu + (1 ϕ)v, from the energy estimate (4.14) and Proposition 4.9 we obtain lim F (u k,, Q ρ ) lim F (w k,, Q (ρ+ηk )/2) + lim F (u x,ν,α, Q ρ \ Q ηk ) lim F (w k,, Q ρ ) + C 2 (ρ N 1 η N 1 k ) = F 0 (u ηk, Q ρ ) + C 2 (ρ N 1 η N 1 k ). Then a diagonalization argument proves the claim. REMARK 5.5 Notice that, in Lemma 5.4, we can choose η ρ independently of 0; in particular we can assume that for any k N there exists a 0 N such that η < ρ k α for any 0. In the following proposition, we want to show that the Γ -limit is homogeneous, i.e. the integrand function ϕ does not depend on x R N. PROPOSITION 5.6 The function ϕ given by Theorem 5.2 does not depend on x, moreover its onehomogeneous extension ϕ as defined in (2.5) is convex. Proof. Let us fix ν S N 1 and x, y R N, x = y. We have to show that ϕ(x, ν) = ϕ(y, ν). (5.5) Let u x,ν ρ be as in (5.3). For simplicity we write u x ρ := ux,ν ρ. Lemma 5.4 asserts the existence of a sequence u which equals u ν,x,α on a tubular neighborhood of the boundary of Q ρ and satisfies (5.4). To simplify notation, we drop the dependence of functions and cubes on the direction ν, which is fixed throughout this proof. Let τ Z N be defined as [ ] yi x i (τ ) i := and v (z) := u (z τ ). Here [r] denotes the largest integer smaller than or equal to r. Notice that τ y x and v ( ) v( ) := u x ρ ( y + x). For any r > 1, we have F 0 (v, Q y ρ) F 0 (v, Q y rρ) lim inf F (v, Q y rρ) = lim inf(f (v, τ + Q x ρ ) + F (v, Q y rρ \ ( τ + Q x ρ ))) = lim inf(f (u, Q x ρ ) + F (u x ( τ ), Q y rρ \ ( τ + Q x ρ ))) = lim F (u, Q x ρ ) + lim F 0 (u x ρ, Qx ρ ) + C 2ρ N 1 (r N 1 1). F (u x ( τ ), Q y rρ \ ( τ + Q x ρ ))

Letting r 1, we then get Γ -CONVERGENCE OF ALLEN CAHN ENERGY 69 F 0 (v, Q y ρ) F 0 (u x ρ, Qx ρ ). The choice of u x ρ then implies m(ρ, y, ν) m(ρ, x, ν), where m(ρ, x, ν) is defined in (5.2). By exchanging x and y, we obtain the equality for any ρ / E x E y. Then, observing that we can rewrite (5.1) in the form ϕ(x, ν) = lim sup ρ 1 N m(ρ, x, ν), ρ 0 +, ρ / E x E y we finally get (5.5). Once x-independence is established, the fact that the extension of ϕ is a convex function follows by standard semicontinuity results (see for example [1]). REMARK 5.7 Note that if ϕ is independent of x, then by dilating the variable x we see that m(ρ, ν) = ρ N 1 m(1, ν) = ρ N 1 ϕ(ν). In particular the set E x of discontinuities is empty for any x R N. Moreover, by the convexity of ϕ, the minimizers u η of m are always characteristic functions of a half-space. We want to prove that the Γ -limit is independent of the subsequence. In order to do so, it is convenient to work with blow-up sequences and the functional G as in Definition 3.1. We begin by showing that we can choose a suitable minimizing sequence which coincides, far from the interface, with the absolute minimizers on the cube. First let us introduce some notation. u ± denotes the periodic extension to RN of the minimizers of G (, Q). Let λ > 0, ν S N 1, and set Q := Q ν,0 and [λ Q] := (z + Q). {z Z N : Q z+λ Q} LEMMA 5.8 There exist constants 0 < δ < 1/3, 0 > 0, λ 0 > 0 and γ 1 > 0 such that for any sequence u with boundary values u (x) = u ν,0 (x) on R N \ [λ Q], which is uniformly bounded in L and satisfies the energy bound Cλ N 1 ( G (u, [λ Q]) G (u ±, [λ Q])), (5.6) there exists a sequence ũ with ũ (x) = u (x) on R N \ [λ Q], and sets S, which are unions of unit cubes, such that for any < 0 and λ > λ 0 the following holds: (a) ũ = u + or ũ = u on [λ Q] \ S ; (b) G (ũ, [λ Q]) G (u, [λ Q]) + Cλ N 1 γ 1; (c) S [λ Q] δ Cλ N 1. Proof. In the following we will consider u as a function on R N, extended by u ν,0 on R N \ [λ Q]. Given a constant 0 < γ < 1/3, we set Z γ := {z ZN : G (u, z + Q) G (u ±, z + Q) γ }, S γ := (z + Q). From the upper bound (5.6) we have S γ [λ Q] Cλ N 1 γ. z Z γ

70 N. DIRR ET AL. Fix now a constant γ 1 < γ /[N(N 1)] and let Z := {z Z N : dist(z + Q, S γ ) 2 γ 1 }, S := z Z (z + Q). From the boundary conditions we know that S [λ Q] > 0. Possibly reducing γ 1, we can also choose 0 < δ < 1/3 such that γ +Nγ 1 < δ. Since we do not have any information on H N 1 ( S γ ), the best available upper bound on S is S [λ Q] Cλ N 1 γ ( γ 1 ) N = Cλ N 1 (γ +Nγ 1) < Cλ N 1 δ, (5.7) and condition (c) is satisfied. We call a cube positive if {x Q + z : u (x) > 0} 1/2, i.e. if [H u ( / α )] = 1 on the cube, where [H u] is defined in (4.11), and negative otherwise. For x R N \ S γ, we define v (x) by 2v (x) := ([H u ( / α )]( α x) + 1)u + (x) + ([H u ( / α )]( α x) 1)u (x). We want to give an estimate of u v L 1 ((S [λ Q])\S γ ). First we show that there cannot be positive cubes in (S [λ Q]) \ S γ which touch negative cubes on one facet. Indeed, assume that we can find two adacent cubes, say Q 1 and Q 2, contained in S \ S γ, such that u is mostly positive in Q 1 and mostly negative in Q 2. Note that the energy scales with N 1 α under the change of variables y = α x, so (4.13) implies that there exists a constant Ĉ(W, g) > 0 such that G (u, int(q 1 Q 2 )) Ĉ. Therefore at least one of the cubes must be in S γ, and v is a well-defined H 1 -function on [λ Q]\S γ. From (4.5) we get, for Q 1, Q 2 as above, {u < 1/2} Q 1 C γ N/(N 1), {u > 1/2} Q 2 C γ N/(N 1). (5.8) By assumptions (H2) and (H3) there is a constant c such that W(u) { c(u 1) 2 if u 1/2, c(u + 1) 2 if u 1/2. Recall that G (u +, Q) 0 and u 2 + 1 W (u ) 0. Using (5.8), we have for sufficiently small on a positive cube, which we call for simplicity Q, γ > G (u, Q) G (u +, Q) 1 [W(u ) + g(u 1)] dx u 1 <3/2 2 g L γ N/(N 1) + 2 g L γ N/(N 1) + u 1 <3/2 2 g u 1 <3/2 u < 1/2 g(u 1) dx { 1 c u 1 2 g u 1 } dx { 1 (1/2) u 1 2 } dx 2 Q g 2 L,

hence Γ -CONVERGENCE OF ALLEN CAHN ENERGY 71 Q {2 g u(x) 1 <3/2} From (5.8), (5.9), the L -bound on u and v and since γ < 1/3 we get u 1 2 dx C 1+γ. (5.9) u v L 1 (Q) = u 1 (v 1) L 1 (Q) C[ + γ N/(N 1) + (1+γ )/2 ] C γ N/(N 1), and the same holds for negative cubes as well. Since γ 1 < γ /[N(N 1)] we have τ := γ /(N 1) Nγ 1 > 0, so summing over the cubes (see (5.7)) we get u v L 1 ((S [λ Q])\S γ ) CλN 1 τ. (5.10) In what follows we mimic the proof of the fundamental estimate, with the important difference that the sets are not given, but depend on. For i N, i dist([λ Q] \ S, S γ ), we define the sets U i as follows: U 0 := S γ, U i+1 := (z + Q). {z Z N : z+q S, dist(z+q,u i )=0} Let also S i := U i+1 \ U i. By the previous L 1 -estimate (5.10) we get gu + gv Cλ N 1 τ. (5.11) (S [λ Q])\S γ (S [λ Q])\S γ (Note that A g 1 = 0 if A is a union of cubes.) This allows us to estimate the nonnegative parts of the functional separately. The idea is to use the upper bound (5.6) and follow the proof of Proposition 4.4. Indeed, (5.11) and (5.6) imply {( u 2 + v 2 ) + 1 (W (u ) + W (v ))} dx < Cλ N 1. (S [λ Q])\S γ Since there are at least γ 1 strips S i contained in S \ S γ, by an averaging argument we can find 0 1 such that {( u 2 + v 2 ) + 1 (W (u ) + W (v ))} dx < Cλ N 1 γ 1. (5.12) S 0 [λ Q] Notice that 0 1, i.e. the chosen strip does not touch the set S 0. Averaging again, we can also assume u v L 1 (S 0 [λ Q]) CλN 1 τ+γ 1. (5.13) Let us now divide the strip S 0 into smaller strips Σ of width, and let ϕ (x) be a smooth cut-off function such that 0 ϕ 1, ϕ 1 on V, ϕ 0 on [λ Q] \ V +1, where V 0 := U i, V +1 := {x U i+1 : dist(x, V ) ( + 1)} and Σ := V +1 \ V. Since the boundary of the cubic set S γ is uniformly Lipschitz, we can also assume ϕ C 1 for some C independent of. We want to choose an index such that the function ũ := (1 ϕ )u + ϕ v