Balanced quasistatic evolutions of critical points in metric spaces

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Almi, Stefano, Fornasier, Massimo, Klemenc, Jona, Scagliotti, Alessandro
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Almi, Stefano
Fornasier, Massimo
Klemenc, Jona
Scagliotti, Alessandro
author_facet Almi, Stefano
Fornasier, Massimo
Klemenc, Jona
Scagliotti, Alessandro
contents Quasistatic evolutions of critical points of time-dependent energies exhibit piecewise smooth behavior, making them useful for modeling continuum mechanics phenomena like elastic-plasticity and fracture. Traditionally, such evolutions have been derived as vanishing viscosity and inertia limits, leading to balanced viscosity solutions. However, for nonconvex energies, these constructions have been realized in Euclidean spaces and assume non-degenerate critical points. In this paper, we take a different approach by decoupling the time scales of the energy evolution and of the transition to equilibria. Namely, starting from an equilibrium configuration, we let the energy evolve, while keeping frozen the system state; then, we update the state by freezing the energy, while letting the system transit via gradient flow or an approximation of it (e.g., minimizing movement or backward differentiation schemes). This approach has several advantages. It aligns with the physical principle that systems transit through energy-minimizing steady states. It is also fully constructive and computationally implementable, with physical and computational costs governed by appropriate action functionals. Additionally, our analysis is simpler and more general than previous formulations in the literature, as it does not require non-degenerate critical points. Finally, this approach extends to evolutions in locally compact metric path spaces, and our axiomatic presentation allows for various realizations.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2506_09812
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Balanced quasistatic evolutions of critical points in metric spaces
Almi, Stefano
Fornasier, Massimo
Klemenc, Jona
Scagliotti, Alessandro
Optimization and Control
Analysis of PDEs
Metric Geometry
Quasistatic evolutions of critical points of time-dependent energies exhibit piecewise smooth behavior, making them useful for modeling continuum mechanics phenomena like elastic-plasticity and fracture. Traditionally, such evolutions have been derived as vanishing viscosity and inertia limits, leading to balanced viscosity solutions. However, for nonconvex energies, these constructions have been realized in Euclidean spaces and assume non-degenerate critical points. In this paper, we take a different approach by decoupling the time scales of the energy evolution and of the transition to equilibria. Namely, starting from an equilibrium configuration, we let the energy evolve, while keeping frozen the system state; then, we update the state by freezing the energy, while letting the system transit via gradient flow or an approximation of it (e.g., minimizing movement or backward differentiation schemes). This approach has several advantages. It aligns with the physical principle that systems transit through energy-minimizing steady states. It is also fully constructive and computationally implementable, with physical and computational costs governed by appropriate action functionals. Additionally, our analysis is simpler and more general than previous formulations in the literature, as it does not require non-degenerate critical points. Finally, this approach extends to evolutions in locally compact metric path spaces, and our axiomatic presentation allows for various realizations.
title Balanced quasistatic evolutions of critical points in metric spaces
topic Optimization and Control
Analysis of PDEs
Metric Geometry
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.09812