The Cahn–Hilliard equation with a nonlinear source term

Abstract Our aim in this paper is to prove the existence of solutions to the Cahn–Hilliard equation with a general nonlinear source term. An essential difficulty is to obtain a global in time solution. Indeed, due to the presence of the source term, one cannot exclude the possibility of blow up in finite time when considering regular nonlinear terms and when considering an approximated scheme. Considering instead logarithmic nonlinear terms, we give sufficient conditions on the source term which ensure the existence of a global in time weak solution. These conditions are satisfied by several important models and applications which can be found in the literature.