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  • The Sharp Interface Limit o...
    Feldman, William M.; Kim, Inwon C.; Palmer, Aaron Zeff

    ESAIM. Control, optimisation and calculus of variations, 2024, Volume: 30
    Journal Article

    The Ising model of statistical physics has served as a keystone example of phase transitions, thermodynamic limits, scaling laws, and many other phenomena and mathematical methods. We introduce and explore an Ising game , a variant of the Ising model that features competing agents influencing the behavior of the spins. With long-range interactions, we consider a mean-field limit resulting in a nonlocal potential game at the mesoscopic scale. This game exhibits a phase transition and multiple constant Nash-equilibria in the supercritical regime. Our analysis focuses on a sharp interface limit for which potential minimizing solutions to the Ising game concentrate on two of the constant Nash-equilibria. We show that the mesoscopic problem can be recast as a mixed local/nonlocal space-time Allen-Cahn type minimization problem. We prove, using a Γ-convergence argument, that the limiting interface minimizes a space-time anisotropic perimeter type energy functional. This macroscopic scale problem could also be viewed as a problem of optimal control of interface motion. Sharp interface limits of Allen-Cahn type functionals have been well studied. We build on that literature with new techniques to handle a mixture of local derivative terms and nonlocal interactions. The boundary conditions imposed by the game theoretic considerations also appear as novel terms and require special treatment.