J.

Differential Equations 255 (2013) 12331253

Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect

Journal of Differential Equations

www.elsevier.com/locate/jde

Weakstrong uniqueness property for the compressible ow

of liquid crystals
Yong-Fu Yang a,c, , Changsheng Dou b,c , Qiangchang Ju c
a
b
c

Department of Mathematics, College of Sciences, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, Jiangsu Province, PR China
School of Statistics, Capital University of Economics and Business, Beijing 100070, PR China
Institute of Applied Physics and Computational Mathematics, P.O. Box 8009, Beijing 100088, PR China

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 30 March 2012
Revised 12 April 2013
Available online 28 May 2013
Keywords:
Liquid crystal
Compressible hydrodynamic ow
Relative entropy
Weakstrong uniqueness

a b s t r a c t
Weakstrong uniqueness property in the class of nite energy
weak solutions is established for two different compressible liquid
crystal systems by the method of relative entropy. To overcome the
diculties caused by the molecular direction with inhomogeneous
Dirichlet boundary condition, new techniques are introduced to
build up the relative entropy inequalities.
2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
In physics, liquid crystals are states of matter which are capable of ow and in which the molecular
arrangements give rise to a preferred direction. Nematic liquid crystals are aggregates of molecules
which posses same orientational order and are made of elongated, rod-like molecules. The continuum
theory of compressible (or incompressible) liquid crystals was rst developed by Ericksen [5] and
Leslie [15] during the period of 1958 through 1968. Since then there have been remarkable research
developments in liquid crystals from both theoretical and applied aspects.
When the uid is an incompressible, viscous uid, Lin [17] rst derived simplied EricksenLeslie
equations modeling liquid crystal ows in 1989. Subsequently, the global existence of weak solutions
with large initial data was proved under the condition that the orientational conguration belongs
to H 2 , and the global existence of classical solutions was also obtained if the viscosity coecient is
large enough in the three-dimensional spaces by Lin and Liu [1820]. While the uid is allowed to

Corresponding author at: Department of Mathematics, College of Sciences, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, Jiangsu
Province, PR China.
E-mail addresses: fudanyoung@gmail.com (Y.-F. Yang), douchangsheng@163.com (C. Dou), qiangchang_ju@yahoo.com (Q. Ju).
0022-0396/$ see front matter 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jde.2013.05.011

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Y.-F. Yang et al. / J. Differential Equations 255 (2013) 12331253

be compressible, the corresponding EricksenLeslie system becomes more complicated and dicult
to study mathematically due to the compressibility.
Our goal of this paper is to establish weakstrong uniqueness property for the compressible ow of
liquid crystals. To begin with, we consider the following simplied version of EricksenLeslie system:

t + div( u) = 0,





1
( u)t + div( u u) + P = u div d  d
| d|2 + F ( d)I3 ,
2

dt + u d = d f(d) ,

(1.1)

where  0 denotes the density, u R3 the velocity, d R3 the direction eld for the averaged
macroscopic molecular orientations, and P ( ) = a the pressure with constant a > 0 and the adiabatic exponent  1. The positive constants , , denote the viscosity, the competition between
kinetic energy and potential energy, and the microscopic elastic relation time for the molecular orientation eld, respectively. The symbol denotes the Kronecker tensor product, I3 is the 3 3 identity
matrix, and d  d denotes the 3 3 matrix whose i j-th entry is xi d, x j d. Indeed,

d  d = ( d)T d,
where ( d) T stands for the transpose of the 3 3 matrix d. The vector-valued smooth function f(d)
denotes the penalty function and has the following form:

f(d) = d F (d),
where the scalar function F (d) is the bulk part of the elastic energy. A typical example is to choose
F (d) as the GinzburgLandau penalization thus yielding the penalty function f(d) as:

F (d) =

1 
2
0

2
| d |2 1 ,

f(d) =

1 
2
0

| d |2 1 d ,

where 0 > 0 is a constant.

Let R3 be a bounded smooth domain. In this paper, we will consider the following initial
boundary conditions:



( , u, d)
t =0 = 0 (x), m0 (x), d0 (x) ,

x ,

(1.2)

and

u| = 0,

d| = d0 (x),

x ,

(1.3)

where

0 L (),
m0 L 1 (),

0  0;

d0 L () H 1 ();

m0 = 0 if 0 = 0;

|m0 |2

L 1 ().

The global existence of weak solutions ( , u, d) to the initialboundary problem (1.1)(1.3) in three
dimensions with > 3/2 was obtained by Wang and Yu in [29] and Liu and Qing in [26], independently. We should also remark that, when system (1.1) is incompressible, Jiang and Tan [13] and Liu

Y.-F. Yang et al. / J. Differential Equations 255 (2013) 12331253

1235

and Zhang in [25] proved the global weak existence of solutions to the ow of nematic liquid crystals for uids with non-constant density. Based on the existence result, Dai et al. in [1] extended the
regularity and uniqueness results of Lin and Liu in [19] to the systems of nematic liquid crystals with
non-constant uid density. Since the global existence of the weak solutions has been established, it is
natural to study their uniqueness property. To our best knowledge, so far there are very few results
concerning uniqueness of weak solutions to the initialboundary value problem (1.1)(1.3).
When the OssenFrank energy conguration functional reduces to the Dirichlet energy functional,
the hydrodynamic ow equation of nematic compressible liquid crystals can actually be written as
follows:

t + div( u) = 0,




1
( u)t + div( u u) + P = u div d  d | d|2 I3 ,
2

dt + u d = d + | d|2 d ,

(1.4)

where d S2 and the other symbols have the same meanings with those in system (1.1). We refer to
the readers to consult the recent papers [4] and [26] for the derivation of the system (1.4). For the
system (1.4), we are concerned with the same initial conditions (1.2) but with the following different
boundary conditions:

u| = 0,

= 0,

x ,

(1.5)

where is the unit outer normal vector of .

In contrast with system (1.1), from the mathematical point of view, it is much more dicult to deal
with the nonlinear term | d|2 d appearing in the third equation of (1.4). Even for the incompressible
ow, there have been no satisfactory results concerning the global existence of weak solutions. Recently, Lin et al. in [21] proved the existence of global-in-time weak solutions on a bounded smooth
domain in R2 . For three-dimensional case, the problem is still open. We should mention that Li and
Wang in [16] have established its weakstrong uniqueness principle in three dimensions, provided
that the existence of its weak solution is obtained.
The compressible ow (1.4) of liquid crystals is much more complicated and hard to study mathematically due to the compressibility. For the one-dimensional case, the global existence of smooth
and weak solutions to the compressible ow of liquid crystals was obtained by Ding et al. in [2,3].
As for three-dimensional case, Huang et al. in [12] and Liu and Zhang in [25] established the local
existence of a unique strong solution provided that the initial data are suciently regular and satisfy
a natural compatibility condition. However, the global existence of weak solution to the compressible
ow of liquid crystals in multi-dimensions is still open.
We would like to point out that the system (1.4) includes several important equations as special
cases: (i) When is constant, the rst equation in (1.4) reduces to the incompressibility condition of the uid (div u = 0), and the system (1.4) becomes the equation of incompressible ow of
nematic liquid crystals provided that P is an unknown pressure function. This was previously proposed by Lin [17] as a simplied EricksenLeslie equation modeling incompressible liquid crystal
ows. (ii) When d is a constant vector eld, the system (1.4) becomes a compressible NavierStokes
equation. There have been a number of papers in the literature on the multi-dimensional Navier
Stokes equations (see [6,24,27] and the references therein). (iii) When both and d are constants, the
system (1.4) becomes the incompressible NavierStokes equation provided that P is an unknown pressure function, the fundamental equation to describe Newtonian uids (see Lions [23] and Temam [28]
for survey of important developments). (iv) When is constant and u = 0, the system (1.4) reduces
to the equation for the heat ow of harmonic maps into S2 . There have been extensive studies on the
heat ow of harmonic maps in the past few decades (see, for example, the monograph by Lin and
Wang [22] and the references therein).

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Y.-F. Yang et al. / J. Differential Equations 255 (2013) 12331253

It is well known that the uniqueness of weak solutions is another fundamental and important
topic in mathematical theory of the compressible NavierStokes equations. In contrast with the existence theory of weak solutions, it seems that uniqueness issue is more dicult and there are only
few results dealing with uniqueness. With the aid of concept of the relative entropy, Germain [11]
introduced a class of (weak) solutions to the compressible NavierStokes system satisfying a relative entropy inequality with respect to a (hypothetical) strong solution of the same problem, and
established the weakstrong uniqueness property within this class (see also [10]). Unfortunately, the
existence of weak solutions belonging to this class, where, in particular, the density possesses a spatial gradient in a suitable Lebesgue space, is not known. Recently, Feireisl et al. [7] introduced the
concept of suitable weak solution for the compressible NavierStokes system, satisfying a general relative entropy inequality with respect to any suciently regular pair of functions. They showed the
global-in-time existence of the suitable weak solutions for any nite energy initial data. Moreover, the
relative entropy inequality can be used to show that suitable weak solutions comply with the weak
strong uniqueness principle, meaning a weak and a strong solution emanating from the same initial
data coincide as long as the latter exists. More recently, Feireisl et al. [8] further showed that any nite
energy weak solution satises a relative entropy inequality with respect to any couple of smooth functions satisfying relevant boundary conditions. Based on the relative entropy inequality, they succeeded
to prove the weakstrong uniqueness and to provide a satisfactory answer to the weakstrong uniqueness problem initially related to the fundamental questions of the well-posedness for the compressible
NavierStokes system. In addition, Feireisl and Novotn [9] also established the similar weakstrong
uniqueness property of the variational solutions for the compressible NavierStokesFourier system.
The authors of the present paper [30] have established the weakstrong uniqueness property in the
class of nite energy weak solutions to the magnetohydrodynamic equations of three-dimensional
compressible isentropic ows with the adiabatic exponent > 1 and constant viscosity coecients,
which improves the corresponding results for the compressible isentropic NavierStokes equations
with > 32 by Feireisl, Jin, and Novotn [8].
This paper aims to establish the weakstrong uniqueness property for two simplied Ericksen
Leslie systems (1.1) and (1.4), respectively, in the spirit of Feireisl et al. [8]. Our method is essentially
based on the relative entropy, the modied relative entropy inequality, and a Gronwall type argument.
Compared with the existence result of weak solution in [26,29], where both of them require > 3/2,
we are going to make use of the techniques, established in [30], to estimate the remainder R (or R1 )
(for the denition see (3.10) (or (4.10))), so as to establish the weakstrong uniqueness property for
an improved lower bound for any adiabatic exponent > 1. When dealing with the compressible nematic liquid crystal ow (1.1) or (1.4), the main diculty lies in the coupling and interaction between
the velocity eld u and the direction eld d. In particular, we should emphasize here that, as far as
the weakstrong uniqueness property for the initialboundary problem (1.1)(1.3) is concerned, more
efforts are required to build up the relative entropy inequality so as to overcome the effects arising
from inhomogeneous boundary condition d| = d0 (x), which is quite different from the case of the
isentropic compressible NavierStokes equations investigated by Feireisl et al. in [8]. According to the
denition of weak solutions for the compressible ow of liquid crystals, it is easy to see that

d L 2 0, T ; H 2 () ,
so the weak solution d actually solves the third equation of (1.1) (or (1.4)) in the strong sense. Consequently, we can combine the arguments of Feireisl et al. in [8] with the energy estimates for parabolic
equation to obtain the desired relative entropy inequality.
The sizes of the positive constants , , and do not play important roles in our proofs, we shall
therefore assume, for simplicity, that

= = = 1,
throughout this paper. In addition, to simplify the notations, we always set

(1.6)

Y.-F. Yang et al. / J. Differential Equations 255 (2013) 12331253

1237

A ( B)C = (C )B A,
in which A, B, and C are vectors in R3 .
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. In the next section, we recall the denitions of weak
and strong solutions to the compressible ow of liquid crystals for two kinds of models and state the
main results. Section 3 is devoted to the derivation of the relative entropy inequality and the proof of
Theorem 2.1. Finally, we prove Theorem 2.2 in Section 4.
2. Main results
We say that a triplet { , u, d} is a nite energy weak solution to the initialboundary value problem (1.1)(1.3), if, for any T > 0,
2

 0, L (0, T ; L ()), u L 2 (0, T ; H 01 ()), u C 0 ([0, T ], L +1 () w ),

d L (0, T ) L 0, T ; H 1 () L 2 0, T ; H 2 () ,
with ( , u, d)(0, x) = (0 (x), m0 (x), d0 (x)) for x .
The rst equation in (1.1) is replaced by a family of integral identities

( , ) ( , ) dx

0 (0, ) dx =

( t + u ) dx dt

(2.1)

, and any [0, T ].

for any C 1 ([0, T ] )
Momentum equations (1.1)2 are satised in the sense of distributions, specically,

u( , ) ( , ) dx

0 u0 (0, ) dx

u t + u u : + P ( ) div u : dx dt


d  d

1
2

 
| d|2 + F (d) I3 : dx dt

(2.2)

, | = 0, and any [0, T ].

for any C 1 ([0, T ] )
Eqs. (1.1)3 are replaced by a family of integral identities


d( , ) ( , ) dx

d0 (0, ) dx

for any

d t d : ( d)u f(d) dx dt

, | = 0, and any [0, T ].

C 1 ([0, T ] )

(2.3)

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Y.-F. Yang et al. / J. Differential Equations 255 (2013) 12331253

The energy inequality

 
E (t ) +

2
| u|2 +
d f(d)
dx dt  E (0)

(2.4)

holds for a.e.

[0, T ], where
 
E (t ) =

1
2

|u|2 +

+ | d|2 + F (d) dx,

2

and

 
E (0) =

1 |m0 |2
2


0 + | d0 | + F (d0 ) dx.

The existence of global-in-time nite energy weak solutions to the initialboundary problem (1.1)(1.3) with the adiabatic exponent > 32 was established in [26,29], provided there exists
a positive constant C 0 such that d f(d)  0 for all |d|  C 0 > 0.
{ , u , d } is called a classical (strong) solution to the initialboundary problem (1.1)(1.3) in
(0, T ) if

C 1 [0, T ] , (t , x)  > 0 for all (t , x) (0, T ) ,



, t u , 2 u C [0, T ] ,
u

d , t d , 2 d C [0, T ]

(2.5)

d satisfy Eq. (1.1), together with the boundary conditions (1.3). Observe that hypothesis (2.5)
and , u,
requires the following regularity properties of the initial data:

(0, ) = 0 C 1 (),
0  > 0,

(0, ) = u0 C 2 (),
u

(2.6)

d (0, ) = d0 C 2 ().

We are now ready to state the rst result of this paper.

Theorem 2.1. Let R3 be a bounded domain with a boundary of class C 2+ , > 0, and > 1. Suppose
that { , u, d} is a nite energy weak solution to the initialboundary problem (1.1)(1.3) in (0, T ) in
, d } is a strong solution emanating from the same initial
the sense specied above, and suppose that { , u
data (2.6).
Then

,
uu

d d .

In a similar way, we dene the nite energy weak solution {1 , u1 , d1 } to the initialboundary value
problem (1.4), (1.2), and (1.5) in the following sense: for any T > 0,

1  0, 1 L (0, T ; L ()), u1 L 2 (0, T ; H 01 ()),

d1 L (0, T ) L 0, T ; H 1 () L 2 0, T ; H 2 () ,
with (1 , 1 u1 , d1 )(0, x) = (0 (x), m0 (x), d0 (x)) for x .

Y.-F. Yang et al. / J. Differential Equations 255 (2013) 12331253

1239

Similarly to (2.1)(2.3), Eqs. (1.4) hold in D ((0, T ) ).

The energy inequality

2
| u1 |2 +
d1 + | d1 |2 d1
dx dt  E 1 (0)

E 1 (t ) +

(2.7)

holds for a.e.

[0, T ], where
 
E 1 (t ) =

1
2

1 |u1 |2 +

1 + | d1 |2 dx,
2

and

 
E 1 (0) =

1 |m0 |2
2

0 + | d0 |2 dx.
2

Remark 2.1. In the derivation of energy inequality (2.7), we have used the fact that |d1 | = 1 to get



1
(t d1 + u1 d1 ) | d1 |2 d1 = | d1 |2 t |d1 |2 + u1 |d1 |2 = 0.
2

Remark 2.2. We should remark that the global-in-time renormalized nite energy weak solutions to
the initialboundary value problem (1.4), (1.2) and (1.5) is still open. For one-dimensional case, Ding
et al. in [2,3] obtained the global-in-time existence of weak solutions.

1 , d 1 } is called a classical (strong) solution to the initialboundary value problem

Similarly, {1 , u
(1.4), (1.2) and (1.5) in (0, T ) if

1 C 1 [0, T ] , 1 (t , x)  > 0 for all (t , x) (0, T ) ,



1 , t u 1 , 2 u 1 C [0, T ] ,
u

d 1 , t d 1 , 2 d 1 C [0, T ]

(2.8)

1 , d 1 satisfy Eqs. (1.4), together with the boundary conditions (1.5). Observe that hypotheand 1 , u
sis (2.8) requires the following regularity properties of the initial data:

1 (0, ) = 0 C 1 (),
0  > 0,

1 (0, ) = u0 C 2 (),
u

d 1 (0, ) = d0 C 2 ().

(2.9)

We now end up this section with another result of this paper.

Theorem 2.2. Let R3 be a bounded domain with a boundary of class C 2+ , > 0, and > 1. Suppose
that {1 , u1 , d1 } is a nite energy weak solution to the initialboundary value problem (1.4), (1.2) and (1.5) in
(0, T ) in the sense specied above, and suppose that {1 , u 1 , d 1 } is a strong solution emanating from the
same initial data (2.9).
Then

1 1 ,

1,
u1 u

d1 d 1 .

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Y.-F. Yang et al. / J. Differential Equations 255 (2013) 12331253

3. Proof of Theorem 2.1

Motivated by the concept of relative entropy in [8], we rst dene relative entropy E =

E ([ , u, d]|[ , u , d ]), with respect to { , u , d }, as

 
E=

1
2

|u u |2 + ( )  ( )( ) ( ) + | d d |2 dx,
2

(3.1)

where

( ) =

(3.2)

In this section, we are going to deduce a relative entropy inequality satised by any weak solution
, d } of smooth
to the initialboundary value problem (1.1)(1.3). To this end, consider a triplet { , u
, u | = 0, and d | = d0 (x). In addition, u and d
functions, bounded away from zero in [0, T ]
solve the third equation of (1.1).
Noticing that the boundary conditions for d and d are inhomogeneous, i.e. d| = d | = d0 (x),
we should adapt and modify the arguments in [8] to build up the relative entropy inequality. More
regularity of d allows us to make use of energy estimates for parabolic equation, which help us
overcome the diculty due to the inhomogeneous boundary conditions. Consequently, combining the
arguments in [8] with the energy estimates for parabolic equations yields the desired relative entropy
inequality.
as a test function in the momentum equation (2.2) to obtain
To begin with, we take u

u u ( , ) dx

0 u0 u (0, ) dx

u t u + u u : u + P ( ) div u u : u dx dt




d f(d) ( d)u dx dt .

(3.3)

Second, we can use the scalar quantity

the continuity equation (2.1) to get

1
2

|u | ( , ) dx =
2

1
2

= 12 |u |2 and =  ( ), respectively, as test functions in

 

0 |u | (0, ) dx +
2

u t u + u ( u )u dx dt

(3.4)

and

( )( , ) dx =

0 ( )(0, ) dx +

t  ( ) + u  ( ) dx dt .

Since (u, d) solves the third equation of (1.1) in the strong sense, it is easy to see that



t (d d ) + u d u d = (d d ) f(d) f(d ) ,

a.e.

(3.5)

Y.-F. Yang et al. / J. Differential Equations 255 (2013) 12331253

1241

Multiplying the above equation by (d d ) and integrating over (0, ), we have

1
2

| d d |2 ( , ) dx +

|d d |2 dx dt

2
d0 d (0, )
dx +

(d d ) ( d)u dx dt

(d d ) ( d )u dx dt +

f(d) f(d ) (d d ) dx dt .

(3.6)

Finally, multiplying the third equation of (1.1) by d f(d) gives

1
2

d f(d)
2 dx dt
| d| + F (d) ( , ) dx +
2

 
=


 


1
d f(d) ( d)u dx dt .
| d0 |2 + F (d0 ) dx +
2

(3.7)

Summing up the relations (3.3)(3.6) with the energy inequality (2.4), we infer that

1
2

|u u |2 + ( )  ( ) + | d d |2 ( , ) dx
2

 
| u u | dx dt +
2

+
0

 


1
2

|d d |2 dx dt

2

1

0
u0 u (0, )
+ (0 ) 0  (0, ) +
d0 d (0, )
dx
2

(t u + u u ) (u u) dx dt +

+
0

u : (u u) dx dt
0

t  ( ) + u  ( ) dx dt

 
+
0

 
dx dt
P ( ) div u
0

d f(d) ( d)u dx dt +

d f(d) ( d)u dx dt


(d d ) ( d)u ( d )u dx dt +



(d d ) f(d) f(d ) dx dt ,

(3.8)

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Y.-F. Yang et al. / J. Differential Equations 255 (2013) 12331253

where we have used (3.7). By virtue of the denition (3.2) of , it is easy to see that

 ( ) ( ) = P ( )
and

t  ( ) +  ( ) u + P ( ) div u dx =


t P ( ) dx.

As a consequence, we deduce from the identities


P ( )( , ) dx

P ( )(0, ) dx =

t P ( ) dx dt
0

and (3.8) that the desired relative entropy inequality holds:

 
| u u | dx dt +
2

E ( ) +
0

|d d | dx dt  E (0) +

R( , u, d, , u , d ) dt ,

(3.9)
where

R = R( , u, d, , u , d ) := Rd + Rc ,




Rd := (u u) t u + ( u )u dx + u : (u u) dx

( )t  ( ) +  ( ) ( u u) dx

(3.10)

P ( ) P ( ) dx,
div u

(3.11)
and

 
Rc : =

d f(d) ( d)u dx dt +



d f(d) ( d)u dx dt

(d d ) ( d)u ( d )u dx dt +



(d d ) f(d) f(d ) dx dt .

(3.12)
In what follows, we shall nish the proof of Theorem 2.1 by applying the relative entropy inequal , d }, where { , u , d } is a classical (smooth) solution of the initialboundary value
ity (3.9) to { , u
problem (1.1), (2.6), and (1.3), such that

(0, ) = 0 ,

(0, ) = u0 ,
u

d (0, ) = d0 .

Y.-F. Yang et al. / J. Differential Equations 255 (2013) 12331253

1243

Accordingly, the integrals depending on the initial data on the right-hand side of (3.9) vanish, and
we apply a Gronwall type argument to deduce the desired result, namely,

d d .

,
uu

Our purpose is to examine all terms in the remainder (3.10) and to show that they can be absorbed
by the left-hand side of (3.9).
Compared with [8], we should remark that the main diculty comes from the coupling and interaction between the velocity eld u and the direction eld d. Moreover, in the context of the
weakstrong uniqueness, we only assume the adiabatic exponent > 1, but not > 3/2 as in [8].
Similarly to the proof of Theorem 2.1 in [30] (see also [8]), we use (3.11) to nd that

(u u) ( u )(u u ) dx +

Rd =

P ( ) P ( )( ) P ( ) dx
div u

 

1 2
div d  d
| d| + F (d ) I3 (u u) dx

2


(u u) ( u )(u u ) dx

( )
u (u u) dx



P ( ) P  ( )( ) P ( ) dx
div u




 
( )
1 2
u div d  d
| d| + F (d ) I3 (u u) dx

2


d f(d ) ( d )(u u) dx

=: Rd

d f(d ) ( d )(u u) dx.

(3.13)

After a tedious but straightforward computation, it follows from (3.12) that


Rc := Rc



d f(d ) ( d )(u u) dx



(d d ) f(d) f(d ) dx +


d ( d d )(u u) dx +

(d d ) ( d d )u dx

) dx
f(d) ( d d )(u u

) dx.
f(d) f(d ) d (u u

(3.14)

Consequently, it follows from the denitions of Rd and Rc that

R( , u, d, , u , d ) = Rd + Rc .

(3.15)

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Y.-F. Yang et al. / J. Differential Equations 255 (2013) 12331253

In order to prove the weakstrong uniqueness property, we have to estimate the remainder R. As
for Rd , since the procedures are almost same as that in [30] (see also [8]), we just follow [30], list
the outlines, and skip the details. In the sequel, we are going to focus on the estimation of Rc .
From (2.6), it is clear to see that




(u u) ( u )(u u ) dx div u P ( ) P  ( )( ) P ( ) dx

 C u L () E [ , u, d]
[ , u , d ] .


(3.16)

Here and hereafter C stands for a generic constant, which may change from line to line.
Let

, d , d , d ) = u div d  d
g = g (u

1
2

 
| d |2 + F (d ) I3 .

Obviously, we have

( )g (u u) dx =

{ 2 < <2 }

{ 2 }

( )g (u u) dx

{0 < 2 }

( )g (u u) dx +

( )g (u u) dx.

(3.17)

Similarly to that in [8], it is easy to see that

2
( )  ( )( ) ( )  C ( ) ( ) for 2 < < 2 ,
(1 + ) otherwise,
where C ( ) is uniformly bounded for belonging to compact sets in (0, +). Thus, we make use of
the above relationship, Hlders inequality and Sobolevs inequality to show that

 2

 g 

( )g (u u) dx

 C ()
  3

L ()
1

{ 2 < <2 }


( )2 dx + u u 2L 6 ()

{ 2 < <2 }

 2

 g 


2


 C ()
  3 E [ , u, d] [ , u , d] + u u L 2 ()
L ()
(3.18)

for any > 0. Likewise, we have

 2

 g 

( )g (u u) dx

 C ()
  3

L ()
1

{0 < 2 }


u 2L 6 ()
1 dx + u

{0 < 2 }

 2

 g 


2


 C ()
  3 E [ , u, d] [ , u , d] + u u L 2 ()
L ()
(3.19)

Y.-F. Yang et al. / J. Differential Equations 255 (2013) 12331253

1245

for any > 0. On the other hand, noticing that

( )  ( )( ) ( )  C ,

as  2  2

and

2 2  C ,

as  2  2 and > 1,

, d ]) that
we conclude from the denition of relative entropy E ([ , u, d]|[ , u

{ 2 }

( )g (u u) dx

{ 2 }

=
{ 2 }

1
1

2 g 2 |u u| dx

2 2 2 g 12 |u u| dx

 12  

dx

 C g L ()

 C g

L () E

 12

|u u | dx
2

[ , u, d]
[ , u , d ] .

(3.20)

Next, we continue to estimate Rc . Noticing that

d L ((0,T )) , d L ((0,T ))  C

(3.21)

and the fact that f is smooth, we have


 12  
 12

2
2

(d d ) f(d) f(d ) dx

 C
|d d| dx
|d d| dx

 d d 2L 2 () + C () d d 2L 2 ()
 d d 2L 2 () + C () d d 2L 2 ()



 d d 2L 2 () + C ()E [ , u, d]
[ , u , d ]

(3.22)

for any > 0, where we have used Sobolevs inequality. It follows from Hlders inequality that

(d d ) ( d d )u dx
 u L () d d 2 d d 2
L ()
L ()

 d d 2L 2 () + C () u 2L () d d 2L 2 ()


 d d 2L 2 () + C () u 2L () E [ , u, d]
[ , u , d ]
(3.23)
for any > 0. It is clear that

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Y.-F. Yang et al. / J. Differential Equations 255 (2013) 12331253

d ( d d )(u u) dx + f(d) ( d d )(u u ) dx




 d L () + f(d) L () u u L 2 () d d L 2 ()




2

 u u 2L 2 () + C () d L () + f(d) L () d d 2L 2 ()



2 


 u u 2L 2 () + C () d L () + f(d) L () E [ , u, d]
[ , u , d ] .

(3.24)

Finally, (3.21) and the fact that f is smooth imply that

f(d) f(d ) ( d )(u u ) dx

 C d L () u u L 2 () d d L 2 ()
2

 u u 2L 2 () + C () d L () d d 2L 2 ()

2 


 u u 2L 2 () + C () d L () E [ , u, d]
[ , u , d ] .

(3.25)

Summing up relations (3.9)(3.25), we conclude that the relative entropy inequality yields the
desired conclusion



E [ , u, d]
[ , u , d ] ( ) 

, d ] (t ) dt ,
h(t )E [ , u, d]
[ , u

where

 2
 g 

 3

L () + 
h(t ) = C u


L ()




+ d L () + f(d)

+ g L () + u 2L ()
2

L ()


+ d 2L () + 1 .

It follows from (3.21) that h L 1 (0, T ). Thus, Theorem 2.1 immediately follows from Gronwalls inequality.
4. Proof of Theorem 2.2
This section is devoted to proving the weakstrong uniqueness property for the initialboundary
value problem (1.4), (1.2), and (1.5). Compared with the problem discussed in Section 3, we would
like to point out two points: (i) The term | d1 |2 d1 in the third equation of (1.4) has higher nonlinearity than f(d) in the third equation of (1.1), so that more regularity results should be obtained to overcome the diculty caused by | d1 |2 d1 . (ii) Different from d| = d0 (x), we now
have homogeneous Neumann boundary condition for d1 at hand, namely, d1 | = 0, which implies that a modied relative entropy is required to prove the weakstrong uniqueness property for
the initialboundary value problem (1.4), (1.2), and (1.5). To be precise, we dene relative entropy
E1 = E1 ([1 , u1 , d1 ]|[1 , u 1 , d 1 ]), with respect to {1 , u 1 , d 1 }, as

Y.-F. Yang et al. / J. Differential Equations 255 (2013) 12331253

 
E1 =

1 |u1 u 1 |2 + (1 )  (1 )(1 1 ) (1 )

1

|d1 d 1 |2 + | d1 d 1 |2

1247

dx,

(4.1)

where is dened by (3.2), {1 , u1 , d1 } is the nite energy weak solution to the initialboundary
1 , d 1 } are smooth functions,
value problem (1.4), (1.2), and (1.5) in the sense of Section 2, and {1 , u
d1

1 bounded away from zero in [0, T ] , u 1 | = 0, and | = 0. In addition, u 1 and d 1 solve

the third equation of (1.4).
1 as a test function in the
We rst establish the relative entropy inequality. For this purpose, take u
momentum equation to obtain

1 u1 u 1 ( , ) dx

0 u0 u 1 (0, ) dx

(4.2)

1 u1 t u 1 + 1 u1 u1 : u 1 + P (1 ) div u 1 u1 : u 1 dx dt

 
d1 ( d1 )u 1 dx dt .

Second, we can use the scalar quantity

tinuity equation to get

1
2

1 |u 1 |2 ( , ) dx =

1
2

1
|u |2
2 1

and  (1 ), respectively, as test functions in the con-

1 u 1 t u 1 + 1 u 1 ( u 1 )u1 dx dt

0 |u 1 |2 (0, ) dx +
0

(4.3)
and

1 (1 )( , ) dx =

0 (1 )(0, ) dx +

1 t  (1 ) + 1 u1  (1 ) dx dt .

(4.4)
Notice that (u1 , d1 ) solves the third equation of (1.4) in the strong sense, we have for almost everywhere


t (d1 d 1 ) + u1 d1 u 1 d 1 = (d1 d 1 ) + | d1 |2 d1 | d 1 |2 d 1 .
Multiplying the above equation by (d1 d 1 ) and (d1 d 1 ), respectively, and integrating by parts,
we obtain

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Y.-F. Yang et al. / J. Differential Equations 255 (2013) 12331253

1
2

|d1 d 1 |2 dx +

| d1 d 1 |2 dx dt

d0 d 1 (0, )
2 dx +

| d1 |2 d1 | d 1 |2 d 1 (d1 d 1 ) dx dt

( d1 )u1 ( d 1 )u 1 (d1 d 1 ) dx dt

(4.5)

and

1
2

| d1 d 1 |2 dx +

|d1 d 1 |2 dx dt

d0 d 1 (0, )
2 dx

| d1 |2 d1 | d 1 |2 d 1 (d1 d 1 ) dx dt

( d1 )u1 ( d 1 )u 1 (d1 d 1 ) dx dt .

(4.6)

Similarly, we multiply the third equation of (1.4) by d1 + | d1 |2 d1 to obtain

1
2

d1 + | d1 |2 d1
2 dx dt

| d1 | ( , ) dx +
0

| d0 | dx +

d1 ( d1 )u1 dx dt .

(4.7)

Summing up the relations (4.2)(4.6) with the energy inequality (2.7), we infer that

1
2

|u1 u 1 |2 + (1 ) 1  (1 ) +

1
2

|d1 d 1 |2 + | d1 d 1 |2


( , ) dx

 
| u1 u 1 | dx dt +
2

+
0

 


1
2

0
u0 u 1 (0, )
+ (0 ) 0  1 (0, )

d0 d 1 (0, )
2 +
d0 d 1 (0, )
2 dx

1 

| d1 d 1 |2 dx dt +

|d1 d 1 |2 dx dt

Y.-F. Yang et al. / J. Differential Equations 255 (2013) 12331253

1 (t u 1 + u1 u 1 ) (u 1 u1 ) dx dt +

+
0

1 t (1 ) + 1 u1 (1 ) dx dt


1 dx dt
P (1 ) div u


(d1 d 1 ) ( d1 )u1 ( d 1 )u 1 dx dt

d1 ( d1 )(u 1 u1 ) dx dt +
0

u 1 : (u 1 u1 ) dx dt
0

1249


(d1 d 1 ) | d1 |2 d1 | d 1 |2 d 1 dx dt


(d1 d 1 ) | d1 |2 d1 | d 1 |2 d 1 dx dt


(d1 d 1 ) ( d1 )u1 ( d 1 )u 1 dx dt ,

(4.8)

where we have used (4.7). Thus, we proceed the similar procedures as in the previous section to
obtain the desired relative entropy inequality

 
| u1 u 1 | dx dt +
2

E1 ( ) +
0

|d1 d 1 |2 + | d1 d 1 |2 dx dt


 E1 (0) +

R1 (1 , u1 , d1 , 1 , u 1 , d 1 ) dt ,

(4.9)

where

R1 = R1 (1 , u1 , d1 , 1 , u 1 , d 1 ) := R1d + R1c ,



R1d := 1 (u 1 u1 ) ( u 1 )(u1 u 1 ) dx

(4.10)



1 P (1 ) P  (1 )(1 1 ) P (1 ) dx
div u



(1 1 )
1
u 1 div d 1  d 1 | d 1 |2 I3 (u 1 u1 ) dx
1
2

(4.11)

and


R1c :=

d1 ( d1 ) d 1 ( d 1 ) (u 1 u1 ) dx +


(d1 d 1 ) ( d1 )u1 ( d 1 )u 1 dx

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Y.-F. Yang et al. / J. Differential Equations 255 (2013) 12331253


(d1 d 1 ) | d1 |2 d1 | d 1 |2 d 1 dx +


(d1 d 1 ) | d1 |2 d1 | d 1 |2 d 1 dx

(d1 d 1 ) ( d1 )u1 ( d 1 )u 1 dx.

(4.12)

Similar to the proof of Theorem 2.1, we shall nish the proof of Theorem 2.2 by applying the rela 1 , d 1 }, where {1 , u 1 , d 1 } is a classical (smooth) solution of the
tive entropy inequality (4.9) to {1 , u
initialboundary value problem (1.4), (2.6), and (1.5), such that

1 (0, ) = 0 ,

d 1 (0, ) = d0 .

1 (0, ) = u0 ,
u

As a result, the integrals depending on the initial data on the right-hand side of (4.9) vanish, and we
apply a Gronwall type argument to deduce the desired result, namely,

1 1 ,

d1 d 1 .

1,
u1 u

To complete the proof, we have to examine all terms in the remainder (4.10) and to show that they
can be absorbed by the left-hand side of (4.9).
From (2.6), it is clear to see that




1 (u 1 u1 ) ( u 1 )(u1 u 1 ) dx div u 1 P (1 ) P  (1 )(1 1 ) P (1 ) dx

 C u 1 L () E1 .

(4.13)

Let

1 , d 1 , d 1 ) = u 1 div d 1  d 1
g 1 = g 1 (u

1
2


| d 1 |2 I3 .

Obviously, we have

(1 1 )g1 (u 1 u1 ) dx


{01 <21 }

(1 1 )g1 (u 1 u1 ) dx +
{1 21 }

(1 1 )g1 (u 1 u1 ) dx.
(4.14)

Similar to (3.18), it follows that

 2

 g 1 

(1 1 )g1 (u 1 u1 ) dx

 C ()
  3 E1
1
1 L ()
1

{01 <21 }

(4.15)

for any > 0. We proceed in a same way as the derivation of (3.20) to nd that

{1 21 }

(1 1 )g1 (u 1 u1 ) dx

 C g1 L () E1 .

(4.16)

Y.-F. Yang et al. / J. Differential Equations 255 (2013) 12331253

1251

Now we are going to estimate R1c . From (4.12), a direct calculation gives

R1c = Ra1c + Rb1c

(4.17)

where


Ra1c =

(d1 d 1 ) ( d1 d 1 )u 1 dx +


d 1 ( d1 d 1 )(u 1 u1 ) dx



| d 1 | + | d1 | d1 (d1 d 1 ) | d1 | | d 1 | dx

(d1 d 1 ) ( d1 )(u1 u 1 ) dx

(4.18)

and


Rb1c =

(d1 d 1 ) ( d1 d 1 )u 1 dx +




| d 1 | + | d1 | d1 (d1 d 1 ) | d1 | | d 1 | dx

|d1 d 1 |2 | d 1 |2 dx.

(4.19)

For the rst term on the right-hand side of (4.18), we have

(d1 d 1 ) ( d1 d 1 )u 1 dx
 u 1 L () d1 d 1 2 d1 d 1 2
L ()
L ()

 d1 d 1 2L 2 () + C () u 1 2L () d1 d 1 2L 2 ()
 d1 d 1 2L 2 () + C () u 1 2L () E1 ,

(4.20)

for any > 0. In a similar way, we also obtain

d 1 ( d1 d 1 )(u 1 u1 ) dx
 u1 u 1 22
+ C () d 1 2L () E1 ,

L ()

(4.21)





| d1 | + | d1 | d1 (d1 d1 ) | d1 | | d1 | dx


 d1 d 1 2L 2 () + C () d 1 2L () + d1 2L () d1 2L () E1 ,

(4.22)

and

(d1 d 1 ) ( d1 )(u1 u 1 ) dx
 u1 u 1 22
+ C () d1 2L () E1 ,

L ()

for any > 0.

(4.23)

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Y.-F. Yang et al. / J. Differential Equations 255 (2013) 12331253

Finally, the Cauchy inequality and the denition of the relative entropy E1 give

(d1 d 1 ) ( d1 d 1 )u 1 dx
 u 1 L () d1 d 1 2 d1 d 1 2
L ()
L ()

 u 1 L () E12 E12
 u 1 L () E1 .

(4.24)

Likewise, we get





| d 1 | + | d1 | d1 (d1 d 1 ) | d1 | | d 1 | dx



 d1 L () d 1 L () + d1 L () d1 d 1 L 2 () d1 d 1 L 2 ()


 d1 L () d 1 L () + d1 L () E1

(4.25)

and

|d1 d 1 |2 | d 1 |2 dx  d 1 2L () d1 d 1 2L 2 ()  d 1 2L () E1 .

(4.26)

Moreover, by applying the quasilinear equations of parabolic type estimates (see [14, Chapter VI,
Section 3]) to the third equation of (1.4) and a density argument, we have

d1 L ()  C .

(4.27)

Summing up relations (4.10)(4.27) with the denition of nite energy weak solution {1 , u1 , d1 },
we conclude from the relative entropy inequality (4.9) that

E1 [1 , u1 , d1 ]
[1 , u 1 , d 1 ] ( ) 


1 , d 1 ] (t ) dt ,
h1 (t )E1 [1 , u1 , d1 ]
[1 , u

where h1 L 1 (0, T ). Thus, Theorem 2.1 immediately follows from Gronwalls inequality.
Remark 4.1. For one-dimensional case, Ding et al. in [2,3] established the existence of global classical
solutions and the existence of global weak solutions. Based on the existence results, one can directly
apply Theorem 2.2 to obtain the weakstrong uniqueness principle for one-dimensional compressible
liquid crystal system.
Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful to the referee for valuable suggestions. The authors also would like to
thank Prof. Song Jiang for helpful discussions and sustained encouragement. Yong-Fu Yangs research
was in part supported by NSFC (Grant No. 11201115) and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation
(Grant No. 2012M510365). Changsheng Dous research was partially supported by China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Grant No. 2012M520205). Ju Qiangchang was supported by NSFC (Grant
No. 11171035).

Y.-F. Yang et al. / J. Differential Equations 255 (2013) 12331253

1253

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