Metastability and rapid convergence to quasi-stationary bar states for the 2D Navier-Stokes Equations

Quasi-stationary, or metastable, states play an important role in two-dimensional turbulent fluid flows where they often emerge on time-scales much shorter than the viscous time scale, and then dominate the dynamics for very long time intervals. In this paper we propose a dynamical systems explanation of the metastability of an explicit family of solutions, referred to as bar states, of the two-dimensional incompressible Navier-Stokes equation on the torus. These states are physically relevant because they are associated with certain maximum entropy solutions of the Euler equations, and they have been observed as one type of metastable state in numerical studies of two-dimensional turbulence. For small viscosity (high Reynolds number), these states are quasi-stationary in the sense that they decay on the slow, viscous timescale. Linearization about these states leads to a time-dependent operator. We show that if we approximate this operator by dropping a higher-order, non-local term, it produces a decay rate much faster than the viscous decay rate. We also provide numerical evidence that the same result holds for the full linear operator, and that our theoretical results give the optimal decay rate in this setting.Comment: 21 pages, 2 figures. Version 3: minor error from version 2 correcte

Breathers as Metastable States for the Discrete NLS equation

We study metastable motions in weakly damped Hamiltonian systems. These are believed to inhibit the transport of energy through Hamiltonian, or nearly Hamiltonian, systems with many degrees of freedom. We investigate this question in a very simple model in which the breather solutions that are thought to be responsible for the metastable states can be computed perturbatively to an arbitrary order. Then, using a modulation hypothesis, we derive estimates for the rate at which the system drifts along this manifold of periodic orbits and verify the optimality of our estimates numerically.Comment: Corrected typos. Added Acknowledgmen

Using global invariant manifolds to understand metastability in Burgers equation with small viscosity

The large-time behavior of solutions to Burgers equation with small viscosity is described using invariant manifolds. In particular, a geometric explanation is provided for a phenomenon known as metastability, which in the present context means that solutions spend a very long time near the family of solutions known as diffusive N-waves before finally converging to a stable self-similar diffusion wave. More precisely, it is shown that in terms of similarity, or scaling, variables in an algebraically weighted $L^2$ space, the self-similar diffusion waves correspond to a one-dimensional global center manifold of stationary solutions. Through each of these fixed points there exists a one-dimensional, global, attractive, invariant manifold corresponding to the diffusive N-waves. Thus, metastability corresponds to a fast transient in which solutions approach this "metastable" manifold of diffusive N-waves, followed by a slow decay along this manifold, and, finally, convergence to the self-similar diffusion wave

Rigorous justification of Taylor dispersion via center manifolds and hypocoercivity

Taylor diffusion (or dispersion) refers to a phenomenon discovered experimentally by Taylor in the 1950s where a solute dropped into a pipe with a background shear flow experiences diffusion at a rate proportional to $1/\nu$, which is much faster than what would be produced by the static fluid if its viscosity is $0 < \nu \ll 1$. This phenomenon is analyzed rigorously using the linear PDE governing the evolution of the solute. It is shown that the solution can be split into two pieces, an approximate solution and a remainder term. The approximate solution is governed by an infinite-dimensional system of ODEs that possesses a finite-dimensional center manifold, on which the dynamics correspond to diffusion at a rate proportional to $1/\nu$. The remainder term is shown to decay at a rate that is much faster than the leading order behavior of the approximate solution. This is proven using a spectral decomposition in Fourier space and a hypocoercive estimate to control the intermediate Fourier modes.Comment: 37 pages, 0 figure

Higher Order Modulation Equations for a Boussinesq Equation

In order to investigate corrections to the common KdV approximation to long waves, we derive modulation equations for the evolution of long wavelength initial data for a Boussinesq equation. The equations governing the corrections to the KdV approximation are explicitly solvable and we prove estimates showing that they do indeed give a significantly better approximation than the KdV equation alone. We also present the results of numerical experiments which show that the error estimates we derive are essentially optimal