Asymptotic stability of the Kolmogorov flow at high Reynolds numbers

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Chen, Qi, Jia, Hao, Wei, Dongyi, Zhang, Zhifei
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Chen, Qi
Jia, Hao
Wei, Dongyi
Zhang, Zhifei
author_facet Chen, Qi
Jia, Hao
Wei, Dongyi
Zhang, Zhifei
contents In this paper we prove the asymptotic stability of the Kolmogorov flow on a non-square torus for perturbations $ω_0$ satisfying $\|ω_0\|_{H^3}\llν^{1/3}$, where $0<ν\ll1$ is the viscosity. Kolmogorov flows are important metastable states to the two dimensional incompressible Navier Stokes equations in the high Reynolds number regime. Our result shows that the perturbed solution will rapidly converge to a shear flow close to the Kolmogorov flow, before settling down to the Kolmogorov flow and slowly decaying to $0$ as $t\to\infty$. In fact, our analysis reveals several interesting time scales and rich dynamical behavior of the perturbation in the transition period $0<t\leq 1/ν$. The threshold $ν^{1/3}$, which is the same as that for the Couette flow, is quite surprising since one of the key stability mechanisms, enhanced dissipation, becomes considerably weaker in the case of Kolmogorov flows due to the presence of critical points. To overcome this essential new difficulty, we establish sharp vorticity depletion estimates near the critical points to obtain improved decay rates for the vorticity and velocity fields that are comparable with those for Couette flows, at least for our purposes. We then combine these estimates (enhanced dissipation, inviscid damping and vorticity depletion) with a quasilinear approximation scheme and a multiple-timescale analysis naturally adapted to the dynamics of the perturbation, to obtain the $ν^{1/3}$ threshold for dynamic stability of Kolmogorov flows. The threshold is expected to be sharp when the perturbation is considered in Sobolev spaces. This appears to be the first result that applies vorticity depletion estimates to improve thresholds for nonlinear asymptotic stability in incompressible fluid equations.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_13181
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Asymptotic stability of the Kolmogorov flow at high Reynolds numbers
Chen, Qi
Jia, Hao
Wei, Dongyi
Zhang, Zhifei
Analysis of PDEs
In this paper we prove the asymptotic stability of the Kolmogorov flow on a non-square torus for perturbations $ω_0$ satisfying $\|ω_0\|_{H^3}\llν^{1/3}$, where $0<ν\ll1$ is the viscosity. Kolmogorov flows are important metastable states to the two dimensional incompressible Navier Stokes equations in the high Reynolds number regime. Our result shows that the perturbed solution will rapidly converge to a shear flow close to the Kolmogorov flow, before settling down to the Kolmogorov flow and slowly decaying to $0$ as $t\to\infty$. In fact, our analysis reveals several interesting time scales and rich dynamical behavior of the perturbation in the transition period $0<t\leq 1/ν$. The threshold $ν^{1/3}$, which is the same as that for the Couette flow, is quite surprising since one of the key stability mechanisms, enhanced dissipation, becomes considerably weaker in the case of Kolmogorov flows due to the presence of critical points. To overcome this essential new difficulty, we establish sharp vorticity depletion estimates near the critical points to obtain improved decay rates for the vorticity and velocity fields that are comparable with those for Couette flows, at least for our purposes. We then combine these estimates (enhanced dissipation, inviscid damping and vorticity depletion) with a quasilinear approximation scheme and a multiple-timescale analysis naturally adapted to the dynamics of the perturbation, to obtain the $ν^{1/3}$ threshold for dynamic stability of Kolmogorov flows. The threshold is expected to be sharp when the perturbation is considered in Sobolev spaces. This appears to be the first result that applies vorticity depletion estimates to improve thresholds for nonlinear asymptotic stability in incompressible fluid equations.
title Asymptotic stability of the Kolmogorov flow at high Reynolds numbers
topic Analysis of PDEs
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.13181