Thermodynamic consistency and fast dynamics in phase field crystal modeling

A general formulation is presented to derive the equation of motion and to demonstrate thermodynamic consistency for several classes of phase field models at once. It applies to models with a conserved phase field, describing either uniform or periodic stable states, and containing slow as well as fast thermodynamic variables. The approach is based on an entropy functional formalism previously developed in the context of phase field models for uniform states [P. Galenko and D. Jou, Phys. Rev. E {\bf 71}, 046125 (2005)] and thus allows to extend several properties of the latter to phase field models for periodic states (phase field crystal models). In particular, it allows to demonstrate the concept of thermodynamic consistency for phase field crystal models with fast dynamics.