Other Mathematics Commons^™

Analysis On Sharp And Smooth Interface, Elizabeth V. Hawkins

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In biology, minimizing a free energy functional gives an equilibrium shape that is the most stable in nature. The formulation of these functionals can vary in many ways, in particular they can have either a smooth or sharp interface. Minimizing a functional can be done through variational calculus or can be proved to exist using various analysis techniques. The functionals investigated here have a smooth and sharp interface and are analyzed using analysis and variational calculus respectively. From the former we find the condition for extremum and its second variation. The second variation is commonly used to analyze stability of …