Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Lasser, Caroline, Lunowa, Stephan B., Wohlmuth, Barbara
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.04644
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Table of Contents:
  • We establish rigorously the equivalence between classical moment closure and a nonlinear variational approximation of the Fokker-Planck equation for dilute polymeric flow in the linearized Hookean spring chain setting. The variational formulation is based on the Dirac-Frankel principle applied to a Gaussian approximation manifold endowed with the Fisher-Rao information metric. We show that the invariance of this manifold under the linear configurational dynamics yields an exact evolution for the macroscopic conformation tensor, recovering the classical diffusive Oldroyd-B closure. While the equivalence only holds in the linearized setting, the associated variational framework provides an abstract error representation and a starting point for the systematic construction of reduced approximation schemes for polymeric flows with nonlinear forcing laws.