Georgia Institute of Technology College of Sciences

We are interested in the cubic to tetragonal phase transition in a shape memory alloy. We consider geometrically linear elasticity. In this framework, Dolzmann and Mueller have shown the following rigidity result:The only stress-free configurations are (locally) twins (i.e. laminates of just two of the three Martensitic variants).However, configurations with arbitrarily small elastic energy are not necessarily close to these twins: The formation of microstructure allows to mix all three Martensitic variants at arbitrary volume fractions. We take an interfacial energy into account and establish a (local) lower bound on elastic + interfacial energy in terms of the Martensitic volume fractions. The model depends on a non-dimensional parameter that measures the strength of the interfacial energy. Our lower, ansatz-free bound has optimal scaling in this parameter. It is the scaling predicted by a reduced model introduced and analyzed by Kohn and Mueller with the purpose to describe the microstructure near an interface between Austenite and twinned Martensite. The optimal construction features branching of the Martensitic twins when approaching this interface.