Volume Preserving Willmore Flow in a Generalized Cahn-Hilliard Flow

Abstract: We investigate the mass-preserving $L^2 $-gradient flow of a generalized Cahn-Hilliard equation and rigorously justify its sharp interface limit. For well-prepared initial data, we show that, as the interface width $\varepsilon$ approaches zero, the diffuse interface converges to a volume-preserving Willmore flow. This result is established for arbitrary spatial dimensions $n$ and applies to a general double-well potential. The proof follows the classical framework of Alikakos-Bates-Chen on Cahn-Hilliard, combining asymptotic analysis to construct approximate solutions, spectral analysis to establish coercivity, and nonlinear estimates to rigorously control the remainder terms.