Thermodynamically Consistent Navier--Stokes--Cahn--Hilliard Models with Mass Transfer and Chemotaxis

Abstract: We derive a class of Navier--Stokes--Cahn--Hilliard systems that models two-phase flows with mass transfer coupled to the process of chemotaxis. These thermodynamically consistent models can be seen as the natural Navier--Stokes analogues of earlier Cahn--Hilliard--Darcy models proposed for modeling tumor growth, and are derived based on a volume-averaged velocity. Then we perform mathematical analysis on the simplified model variant with zero excess of total mass and equal densities. We establish the existence of global weak solutions in two and three dimensions for prescribed mass transfer terms. Under additional assumptions, we prove the global strong well-posedness in two dimensions with variable fluid viscosity and mobilities, which also includes a continuous dependence on initial data and mass transfer terms for the chemical potential and the order parameter in strong norms.