We study the stability threshold of the 2D Couette flow in Sobolev spaces at high Reynolds number $Re$. We prove that if the initial vorticity $Ω_{in}$ satisfies $\|Ω_{in}-(-1)\|_{H^σ}\leq εRe^{-1/3}$, then the solution of the 2D Navier-Stokes equation approaches to some shear flow which is also close to Couette flow for time $t\gg Re^{1/3}$ by a mixing-enhanced dissipation effect and then converges back to Couette flow when $t\to +\infty$.
In this paper, we study the transition threshold of the 3D Couette flow in Sobolev space at high Reynolds number $\text{Re}$. It was proved that if the initial velocity $v_0$ satisfies $\|v_0-(y,0,0)\|_{H^2}\le c_0\text{Re}^{-1}$, then the solution of the 3D Navier-Stokes equations is global in time and does not transition away from the Couette flow. This result confirms the transition threshold conjecture in physical literatures.
We study Sobolev regularity disturbances to the periodic, plane Couette flow in the 3D incompressible Navier-Stokes equations at high Reynolds number $\textbf{Re}$. Our goal is to estimate how the stability threshold scales in $\textbf{Re}$: the largest the initial perturbation can be while still resulting in a solution that does not transition away from Couette flow. In this work we prove that initial data which satisfies $\| u_{in} \|_{H^σ} \leq δ\textbf{Re}^{-3/2}$ for any $σ> 9/2$ and some $δ= δ(σ) > 0$ depending only on $σ$, is global in time, remains within $O(\textbf{Re}^{-1/2})$ of the…
In this paper, we consider the stability threshold of the 2D shear flow $(U(y),0)^{\top}$ of the Navier-Stokes equation at high Reynolds number $Re$. When the shear flow is near in Sobolev norm to the Couette flow $(y,0)^{\top}$ in some sense, we prove that if the initial data $u_0$ satisfies $\|u_0-(U(y),0)^{\top}\|\leq εRe^{-1/3}$, then the solution of the 2D Navier-Stokes equation approaches to some shear flow which is also close to the Couette flow for $t\gg Re^{1/3}$, as $t\to\infty$.
In this paper, we study the nonlinear asymptotic stability of the Couette flow in the stably stratified regime, namely the Richardson number $γ^2>\frac{1}{4}$. Precisely, we prove that if the initial perturbation $(u_{in},\vartheta_{in})$ of the Couette flow $v_s=(y,0)$ and the linear temperature $ρ_s=-γ^2y+1$ satisfies $\|u_{in}\|_{H^{s+1}}+\|\vartheta_{in}\|_{H^{s+2}}\leq ε_0ν^{\frac{1}{2}}$, then the asymptotic stability holds.
We prove nonlinear stability for finite amplitude perturbations of plane Couette flow. A bound of the solution of the resolvent equation in the unstable complex half-plane is used to estimate the solution of the full nonlinear problem.The result is a lower bound, including Reynolds number dependence,of the threshold amplitude below which all perturbations are stable. Our result is an improvement of the corresponding bound derived in \cite{KLH:1}.
We consider the 2D Navier-Stokes equation on $\mathbb T \times \mathbb R$, with initial datum that is $\varepsilon$-close in $H^N$ to a shear flow $(U(y),0)$, where $\| U(y) - y\|_{H^{N+4}} \ll 1$ and $N>1$. We prove that if $\varepsilon \ll ν^{1/2}$, where $ν$ denotes the inverse Reynolds number, then the solution of the Navier-Stokes equation remains $\varepsilon$-close in $H^1$ to $(e^{t ν\partial_{yy}}U(y),0)$ for all $t>0$. Moreover, the solution converges to a decaying shear flow for times $t \gg ν^{-1/3}$ by a mixing-enhanced dissipation effect, and experiences a transient growth of gra…
In this paper, we study the transition threshold problem for the 2-D Navier-Stokes equations around the Couette flow $(y,0)$ at large Reynolds number $Re$ in a finite channel. We develop a systematic method to establish the resolvent estimates of the linearized operator and space-time estimates of the linearized Navier-Stokes equations. In particular, three kinds of important effects: enhanced dissipation, inviscid damping and boundary layer, are integrated into the space-time estimates in a sharp form. As an application, we prove that if the initial velocity $v_0$ satisfies $\|v_0-(y, 0)\|_{H…
We study the stability of the Couette flow $(y,0,0)^T$ in the 3D incompressible magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) equations for a conducting fluid on $\mathbb{T} \times \mathbb{R} \times \mathbb{T} $ in the presence of a homogeneous magnetic field $α(σ, 0, 1)$. We consider the inviscid, ideal conductor limit $\textbf{Re}^{-1}$, $\textbf{R}_m^{-1} \ll 1$ and prove that for strong and suitably oriented background fields the Couette flow is asymptotically stable to perturbations small in the Sobolev space $H^N$. More precisely, we show that if $α$ and $N$ are sufficiently large, $σ\in \mathbb{R} \setminu…
We are concerned with the linear stability of the Couette flow for the non-isentropic compressible Navier-Stokes equations with vanished shear viscosity in a domain $\mathbb{T}\times \mathbb{R}$. For a general initial data settled in Sobolev spaces, we obtain a Lyapunov type instability of the density, the temperature, the compressible part of the velocity field, and also obtain an inviscid damping for the incompressible part of the velocity field. Moreover, if the initial density, the initial temperature and the incompressible part of the initial velocity field satisfy some quality relation, …
In this paper, we study nonlinear stability of the 3D plane Couette flow $(y,0,0)$ at high Reynolds number ${Re}$ in a finite channel $\mathbb{T}\times [-1,1]\times \mathbb{T}$. It is well known that the plane Couette flow is linearly stable for any Reynolds number. However, it could become nonlinearly unstable and transition to turbulence for small but finite perturbations at high Reynolds number. This is so-called Sommerfeld paradox. One resolution of this paradox is to study the transition threshold problem, which is concerned with how much disturbance will lead to the instability of the fl…
This paper establishes the nonlinear stability of the Couette flow for the 2D Boussinesq equations with only vertical dissipation. The Boussinesq equations concerned here model buoyancy-driven fluids such as atmospheric and oceanographic flows. Due to the presence of the buoyancy forcing, the energy of the standard Boussinesq equations could grow in time. It is the enhanced dissipation created by the linear non-self-adjoint operator $y\partial_x -ν\partial_{yy}$ in the perturbation equation that makes the nonlinear stability possible. When the initial perturbation from the Couette flow $(y, 0)…
We discuss the application of the resolvent technique to prove stability of plane Couette flow. Using this technique, we derive a threshold amplitude for perturbations that can lead to turbulence in terms of the Reynolds number. Our main objective is to show exactly how much control one should have over the perturbation to assure stability via this technique.
The stability threshold for Boussinesq equations around stratified Couette flow with unequal viscosity and thermal diffusivity on $\mathbb{T}\times\mathbb{R}^2$
School of Mathematical Sciences, Shanghai Jiao Tong University（上海交通大学数学科学学院）
This is the second in a pair of works which study small disturbances to the plane, periodic 3D Couette flow in the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations at high Reynolds number $\textbf{Re}$. In this work, we show that there is constant $0 < c_0 \ll 1$, independent of $\textbf{Re}$, such that sufficiently regular disturbances of size $ε\lesssim \textbf{Re}^{-2/3-δ}$ for any $δ> 0$ exist at least until $t = c_0ε^{-1}$ and in general evolve to be $O(c_0)$ due to the lift-up effect. Further, after times $t \gtrsim \textbf{Re}^{1/3}$, the streamwise dependence of the solution is rapidly diminishe…
We study small disturbances to the periodic, plane Couette flow in the 3D incompressible Navier-Stokes equations at high Reynolds number $\textbf{Re}$. We prove that for sufficiently regular initial data of size $ε\leq c_0\textbf{Re}^{-1}$ for some universal $c_0 > 0$, the solution is global, remains within $O(c_0)$ of the Couette flow in $L^2$, and returns to the Couette flow as $t \rightarrow \infty$. For times $t \gtrsim \textbf{Re}^{1/3}$, the streamwise dependence is damped by a mixing-enhanced dissipation effect and the solution is rapidly attracted to the class of "2.5 dimensional" stre…
In this paper, we study the nonlinear asymptotic stability of Couette flow for the two-dimensional Navier-Stokes equation with small viscosity $ν>0$ in $\mathbb{T}\times\mathbb{R}$. It's generally known the nonlinear asymptotic stability of the Couette flow depends closely on the size and regularity of the initial perturbation, which yields the stability threshold problem. This work studies the relationship between the size and the regularity of the initial perturbation that makes the nonlinear asymptotic stability holds. More precisely, we proved that if the initial perturbation is in some Ge…
In this paper, we study stationary structures near the planar Couette flow in Sobolev spaces on a channel $\mathbb{T}\times[-1,1]$, and asymptotic behavior of Couette flow in Gevrey spaces on $\mathbb{T}\times\mathbb{R}$ for the $β$-plane equation. Let $T>0$ be the horizontal period of the channel and $α={2π\over T}$ be the wave number. We obtain a sharp region $O$ in the whole $(α,β)$ half-plane such that non-parallel steadily traveling waves do not exist for $(α,β)\in O$ and such traveling waves exist for $(α,β)$ in the remaining regions, near Couette flow for $H^{\geq5}$ velocity perturbati…
