Analysis of some singular solutions in fluid dynamics

Studies on singular flows in which either the velocity fields or the vorticity fields change dramatically on small regions are of considerable interests in both the mathematical theory and applications. Important examples of such flows include supersonic shock waves, boundary layers, and motions of vortex sheets, whose studies pose many outstanding challenges in both theoretical and numerical analysis. The aim of this talk is to discuss some of the key issues in studying such flows and to present some recent progress. First we deal with a supersonic flow past a perturbed cone, and prove the global existence of a shock wave for the stationary supersonic gas flow past an infinite curved and symmetric cone. For a general perturbed cone, a local existence theory for both steady and unsteady is also established. We then present a result on global existence and uniqueness of weak solutions to the 2-D Prandtl's system for unsteady boundary layers. Finally, we will discuss some new results on the analysis of the vortex sheets motions which include the existence of 2-D vortex sheets with reflection symmetry; and no energy concentration for steady 3-D axisymmetric vortex sheets

Boundary Layer Problems in the Viscosity-Diffusion Vanishing Limits for the Incompressible MHD Systems

In this paper, we we study boundary layer problems for the incompressible MHD systems in the presence of physical boundaries with the standard Dirichlet oundary conditions with small generic viscosity and diffusion coefficients. We identify a non-trivial class of initial data for which we can establish the uniform stability of the Prandtl's type boundary layers and prove rigorously that the solutions to the viscous and diffusive incompressible MHD systems converges strongly to the superposition of the solution to the ideal MHD systems with a Prandtl's type boundary layer corrector. One of the main difficulties is to deal with the effect of the difference between viscosity and diffusion coefficients and to control the singular boundary layers resulting from the Dirichlet boundary conditions for both the viscosity and the magnetic fields. One key derivation here is that for the class of initial data we identify here, there exist cancelations between the boundary layers of the velocity field and that of the magnetic fields so that one can use an elaborate energy method to take advantage this special structure. In addition, in the case of fixed positive viscosity, we also establish the stability of diffusive boundary layer for the magnetic field and convergence of solutions in the limit of zero magnetic diffusion for general initial data.Comment: This paper is translated by published paper in Chinese in "Sciences in China:Mathematics, Vol 47(2017), No.10, pp1-2

On formation of singularity for non-isentropic Navier-Stokes equations without heat-conductivity

It is known that smooth solutions to the non-isentropic Navier-Stokes equations without heat-conductivity may lose their regularities in finite time in the presence of vacuum. However, in spite of the recent progress on such blowup phenomenon, it remain to give a possible blowup mechanism. In this paper, we present a simple continuation principle for such system, which asserts that the concentration of the density or the temperature occurs in finite time for a large class of smooth initial data, which is responsible for the breakdown of classical solutions. It also give an affirmative answer to a strong version of conjecture proposed by J.Nash in 1950sComment: 17 pages. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1210.593

Global Weak Solutions to Non-isothermal Nematic Liquid Crystals in 2D

In this paper, we prove the global existence of weak solutions to the non-isothermal nematic liquid crystal system on $\mathbb T^2$, based on a new approximate system which is different from the classical Ginzburg-Landau approximation. Local energy inequalities are employed to recover the estimates on the second order spacial derivatives of the director fields locally in time, which cannot be derived from the basic energy balance. It is shown that these weak solutions conserve the total energy and while the kinetic and potential energies transfer to the heat energy precisely. Furthermore, it is also established that these weak solutions have at most finite many singular times at which the energy concentration occurs, and as a result, the temperature must increase suddenly at each singular time on some part of $\mathbb T^2$.Comment: 40 page

Global Smooth Supersonic Flows in Infinite Expanding Nozzles

This paper concerns smooth supersonic flows with Lipschitz continuous speed in two-dimensional infinite expanding nozzles, which are governed by a quasilinear hyperbolic equation being singular at the sonic and vacuum state. The flow satisfies the slip condition on the walls and the flow velocity is prescribed at the inlet. First, it is proved that if the incoming flow is away from the sonic and vacuum state and its streamlines are rarefactive at the inlet, then a flow in a straight nozzle never approaches the sonic and vacuum state in any bounded region. Furthermore, a sufficient and necessary condition of the incoming flow at the inlet is derived for the existence of a global smooth supersonic flow in a straight nozzle. Then, it is shown that for each incoming flow satisfying this condition, there exists uniquely a global smooth supersonic flow in a symmetric nozzle with convex upper wall. It is noted that such a flow may contain a vacuum. If there is a vacuum for a global smooth transonic flow in a symmetric nozzle with convex upper wall, it is proved that for the symmetric upper part of the flow, the first vacuum point along the symmetric axis must be located at the upper wall and the set of vacuum points is the closed domain bounded by the tangent half-line of the upper wall at this point to downstream and the upper wall after this point. Moreover, the flow speed is globally Lipschitz continuous in the nozzle, and on the boundary between the gas and the vacuum, the flow velocity is along this boundary and the normal derivatives of the flow speed and the square of the sound speed both are zero. As an immediate consequence, the local smooth transonic flow obtained in [10] can be extended into a global smooth transonic flow in a symmetric nozzle whose upper wall after the local flow is convex

On an Elliptic Free Boundary Problem and Subsonic Jet Flows for a Given Surrounding Pressure

This paper concerns compressible subsonic jet flows for a given surrounding pressure from a two-dimensional finitely long convergent nozzle with straight solid wall, which are governed by a free boundary problem for a quasilinear elliptic equation. For a given surrounding pressure and a given incoming mass flux, we seek a subsonic jet flow with the given incoming mass flux such that the flow velocity at the inlet is along the normal direction, the flow satisfies the slip condition at the wall, and the pressure of the flow at the free boundary coincides with the given surrounding pressure. In general, the free boundary contains two parts: one is the particle path connected with the wall and the other is a level set of the velocity potential. We identify a suitable space of flows in terms of the minimal speed and the maximal velocity potential difference for the well-posedness of the problem. It is shown that there is an optimal interval such that there exists a unique subsonic jet flow in the space iff the length of the nozzle belongs to this interval. Furthermore, the optimal regularity and other properties of the flows are shown.Comment: accepted on SIAM J. Math. Ana

Existence of Global Steady Subsonic Euler Flows through Infinitely Long Nozzles

In this paper, we study the global existence of steady subsonic Euler flows through infinitely long nozzles without the assumption of irrotationality. It is shown that when the variation of Bernoulli's function in the upstream is sufficiently small and mass flux is in a suitable regime with an upper critical value, then there exists a unique global subsonic solution in a suitable class for a general variable nozzle. One of the main difficulties for the general steady Euler flows, the governing equations are a mixed elliptic-hyperbolic system even for uniformly subsonic flows. A key point in our theory is to use a stream function formulation for compressible Euler equations. By this formulation, Euler equations are equivalent to a quasilinear second order equation for a stream function so that the hyperbolicity of the particle path is already involved. The existence of solution to the boundary value problem for stream function is obtained with the help of the estimate for elliptic equation of two variables. The asymptotic behavior for the stream function is obtained via a blow up argument and energy estimates. This asymptotic behavior, together with some refined estimates on the stream function, yields the consistency of the stream function formulation and thus the original Euler equations.Comment: 1 figur

Incompressible inviscid resistive MHD surface waves in 2D

We consider the dynamics of a layer of an incompressible electrically conducting fluid interacting with the magnetic field in a two-dimensional horizontally periodic setting. The upper boundary is in contact with the atmosphere, and the lower boundary is a rigid flat bottom. We prove the global well-posedness of the inviscid and resistive problem with surface tension around a non-horizontal uniform magnetic field; moreover, the solution decays to the equilibrium almost exponentially. One of the key observations here is an induced damping structure for the fluid vorticity due to the resistivity and transversal magnetic field.Comment: 36p

Global Existence of Weak Solutions to the Barotropic Compressible Navier-Stokes Flows with Degenerate Viscosities

This paper concerns the existence of global weak solutions to the barotropic compressible Navier-Stokes equations with degenerate viscosity coefficients. We construct suitable approximate system which has smooth solutions satisfying the energy inequality, the BD entropy one, and the Mellet-Vasseur type estimate. Then, after adapting the compactness results due to Mellet-Vasseur [Comm. Partial Differential Equations 32 (2007)], we obtain the global existence of weak solutions to the barotropic compressible Navier-Stokes equations with degenerate viscosity coefficients in two or three dimensional periodic domains or whole space for large initial data. This, in particular, solved an open problem in [P. L. Lions. Mathematical topics in fluid mechanics. Vol. 2. Compressible models. Oxford University Press, 1998]

Global Well-Posedness and Large Time Asymptotic Behavior of Classical Solutions to the Compressible Navier-Stokes Equations with Vacuum

This paper concerns the global well-posedness and large time asymptotic behavior of strong and classical solutions to the Cauchy problem of the Navier-Stokes equations for viscous compressible barotropic flows in two or three spatial dimensions with vacuum as far field density. For strong and classical solutions, some a priori decay with rates (in large time) for both the pressure and the spatial gradient of the velocity field are obtained provided that the initial total energy is suitably {small.} Moreover, by using these key decay rates and some analysis on the expansion rates of the essential support of the density, we establish the global existence and uniqueness of classical solutions (which may be of possibly large oscillations) in two spatial dimensions, provided the smooth initial data are of small total energy. In addition, the initial density can even have compact support. This, in particular, yields the global regularity and uniqueness of the re-normalized weak solutions of Lions-Feireisl to the two-dimensional compressible barotropic flows for all adiabatic number $\gamma>1$ provided that the initial total energy is small.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1004.4749, arXiv:1207.374