Global Strong Solutions for Maxwell-Stefan Diffusion with Additive Friction Coefficients

Abstract

We study Maxwell-Stefan diffusion with additive friction coefficients $f_{ij}=g_i+g_j$. In mass fractions, the system isolates the constrained pair-friction block; in mole fractions, it is the classical ideal isothermal/isobaric Maxwell-Stefan system at constant total molar concentration. Additivity makes the constrained pair-friction dissipation species-diagonal; conversely, species-diagonality on one interior barycentric constraint space forces a pair-sum representation. At operator level, the positive constrained relaxation operator is a scalar shift of a compression of $G=diag[g_1,\ldots,g_N]$. Its scalar resolvent yields both an explicit constrained inverse and interlacing spectral roots, which form global real-analytic coordinates on the open simplex and whose differentials are left eigen-covectors. In root coordinates the principal part is diagonal, no self-square gradient term occurs, and scalar comparison yields invariant rectangles and separation from the simplex boundary. For regularity we introduce entropy-stabilized one-sided multi-EPD truncations: Euler-Poisson-Darboux entropies cancel mixed quadratic production, while for $N\ge4$ a truncation-weighted mixing-entropy correction supplies transverse coercivity. Caccioppoli and logarithmic estimates, shrinking, and critical mass yield Hölder continuity up to the Neumann boundary. The mixing entropy also symmetrizes the moment system; frozen conormal estimates give spatial Lipschitz bounds. Together with time Hölder control and short-interval maximal regularity, this yields global strong solvability on bounded $C^{2+α}$ domains with $0<α<1$, for each $N\ge2$, $d\ge2$, and $p>d+2$, for all uniformly positive, compatible initial concentrations in the natural trace class. Solutions become classical for positive times and converge exponentially to equilibrium in relative entropy, $L^2$, and $C^1(\barΩ)$.