Quasistatic Droplet percolation

Nestor Guillen, Inwon Kim

Published 2013-03-07Version 1

We consider the Hele-Shaw problem in a randomly perforated domain with zero Neumann boundary conditions. A homogenization limit is obtained as the characteristic scale of the domain goes to zero. Specifically, we prove that the solutions as well as their free boundaries converge uniformly to those corresponding to a homogeneous and anisotropic Hele-Shaw problem set in $\mathbb{R}^d$. The main challenge when deriving a limit lies in controlling the oscillations of the free boundary, this is overcome first by extending De Giorgi-Nash-Moser type estimates to perforated domains and second by proving the almost surely non-degenerate growth of the solution near its free boundary.