Existence of solutions for compressible fluid models of Korteweg type

Abstract

This work is devoted to the study of the initial boundary value problem for a general non isothermal model of capillary fluids derived by J.E Dunn and J.Serrin (1985), which can be used as a phase transition model. We distinguish two cases, when the physical coefficients depend only on the density, and the general case. In the first case we can work in critical scaling spaces, and we prove global existence of solution and uniqueness for data close to a stable equilibrium. For general data, existence and uniqueness is stated on a short time interval. In the general case with physical coefficients depending on density and on temperature, additional regularity is required to control the temperature in $L^{\infty}$ norm. We prove global existence of solution close to a stable equilibrium and local in time existence of solution with more general data. Uniqueness is also obtained.