A first-order hyperbolic reformulation of the Cahn-Hilliard equation

Abstract: In this paper we present a new first-order hyperbolic reformulation of the Cahn-Hilliard equation. The model is obtained from the combination of augmented Lagrangian techniques proposed earlier by the authors of this paper, with a classical Cattaneo-type relaxation that allows to reformulate diffusion equations as augmented first order hyperbolic systems with stiff relaxation source terms. The proposed system is proven to be hyperbolic and to admit a Lyapunov functional, in accordance with the original equations. A new numerical scheme is proposed to solve the original Cahn-Hilliard equations based on conservative semi-implicit finite differences, while the hyperbolic system was numerically solved by means of a classical second order MUSCL-Hancock-type finite volume scheme. The proposed approach is validated through a set of classical benchmarks such as spinodal decomposition, Ostwald ripening and exact stationary solutions.