Quasi-crystalline phase separation in one dimension

Abstract

We investigate a Modica-Mortola energy in heterogeneous materials with a quasi-crystalline microstructure, described by a suitable notion of almost periodicity. In the regime where phase separation occurs at a finer scale than homogenization, we establish compactness and $Γ$-convergence results in one dimension for vector-valued phases. The main novelty lies in the explicit characterization of the effective surface energy, which reveals the interplay between phase separation and homogenization. In particular, we prove that heterogeneities can promote the splitting of a phase separation into several energetically favorable microscopic transitions.