Abstract: We study microstructure formation in two nonconvex singularly-perturbed variational problems from materials science, one modeling austenite-martensite interfaces in shape-memory alloys, the other one slip structures in the plastic deformation of crystals. For both functionals we determine the scaling of the optimal energy in terms of the parameters of the problem, leading to a characterization of the mesoscopic phase diagram. Our results identify the presence of a new phase, which is intermediate between the classical laminar microstructures and branching patterns. The new phase, characterized by partial branching, appears for both problems in the limit of small volume fraction, that is, if one of the variants (or of the slip systems) dominates the picture and the volume fraction of the other one is small.

Abstract: Magnetic shape memory alloys are characterized by the coupling between a structural phase transition and magnetic one. This permits to control the shape change via an external magnetic field, at least in single crystals. Composite materials with single-crystalline particles embedded in a softer matrix have been proposed as a way to overcome the blocking of the transformation at grain boundaries. We investigate hysteresis phenomena for small NiMnGa single crystals embedded in a polymer matrix for slowly varying magnetic fields. The evolution of the microstructure is studied within the rate-independent variational framework proposed by Mielke and Theil (1999). The underlying variational model incorporates linearized elasticity, micromagnetism, stray field and a dissipation term proportional to the volume swept by the phase boundary. The time discretization is based on an incremental minimization of the sum of energy and dissipation. A backtracking approach is employed to approximately ensure the global minimality condition. We illustrate and discuss the influence of the particle geometry (volume fraction, shape, arrangement) and the polymer elastic parameters on the observed hysteresis and compare with recent experimental results.

Abstract: The estimation of motion in an image sequence is a fundamental task in image processing. Frequently, the image sequence is corrupted by noise and one simultaneously asks for the underlying motion field and a restored sequence. In smoothly shaded regions of the restored image sequence the brightness constancy assumption along motion paths leads to a pointwise differential condition on the motion field. At object boundaries which are edge discontinuities both for the image intensity and for the motion field this condition is no longer well defined. In this paper a total-variation type functional is discussed for joint image restoration and motion estimation. This functional turns out not to be lower semicontinuous, and in particular fine-scale oscillations may appear around edges. By the general theory of vector valued $BV$ functionals its relaxation leads to the appearance of a singular part of the energy density, which can be determined by the solution of a local minimization problem at edges. Based on bounds for the singular part of the energy and under appropriate assumptions on the local intensity variation one can exclude the existence of microstructures and obtain a model well-suited for simultaneous image restoration and motion estimation. Indeed, the relaxed model incorporates a generalized variational formulation of the brightness constancy assumption. The analytical findings are related to ambiguity problems in motion estimation such as the proper distinction between foreground and background motion at object edges.

Abstract: Dislocations in crystals can be studied by a Peierls-Nabarro type model, which couples linear elasticity with a nonconvex term modeling plastic slip. In the limit of small lattice spacing, and for dislocations restricted to planes, we show that it reduces to a line-tension model, with an energy depending on the local orientation and Burgers vector of the dislocation. This model predicts, for specific geometries, spontaneous formation of microstructure, in the sense that straight dislocations are unstable towards a zig-zag pattern. Coupling between dislocations in different planes can lead to microstructures over several length scales.

Abstract: We consider vectorial variational problems in nonlinear elasticity of the form I[u]=∫W(Du)dx, where W is continuous on matrices with a positive determinant and diverges to infinity along sequences of matrices whose determinant is positive and tends to zero. We show that, under suitable growth assumptions, the functional ∫Wqc(Du)dx is an upper bound on the relaxation of I, and coincides with the relaxation if the quasiconvex envelope W qc of W is polyconvex and has p-growth from below with p≧n. This includes several physically relevant examples. We also show how a constraint of incompressibility can be incorporated in our results.

Abstract: We compute the one-point probability distribution for the stationary KPZ equation (i.e. initial data $\mathcal{H}(0,X)=B(X)$, for $B(X)$ a two-sided standard Brownian motion) and show that as time $T$ goes to infinity, the fluctuations of the height function $\mathcal{H}(T,X)$ grow like $T^{1/3}$ and converge to those previously encountered in the study of the stationary totally asymmetric simple exclusion process, polynuclear growth model and last passage percolation. The starting point for this work is our derivation of a Fredholm determinant formula for Macdonald processes which degenerates to a corresponding formula for Whittaker processes. We relate this to a polymer model which mixes the semi-discrete and log-gamma random polymers. A special case of this model has a limit to the KPZ equation with initial data given by a two-sided Brownian motion with drift $β$ to the left of the origin and $b$ to the right of the origin. The Fredholm determinant has a limit for $β>b$, and the case where $β=b$ (corresponding to the stationary initial data) follows from an analytic continuation argument.