A Missed Persistence Property for the Euler Equations, and its Effect on Inviscid Limits

TL;DR

This paper investigates the failure of strong convergence of Navier-Stokes solutions to Euler solutions in three-dimensional domains, highlighting the role of a missing persistence property and providing a simplified, general proof of counterexamples.

Contribution

It presents a more general and simpler proof that the strong convergence fails in arbitrary smooth domains due to the absence of a key persistence property.

Findings

Counterexamples exist in arbitrary smooth domains.

Failure of strong convergence is linked to the lack of a persistence property.

A new, simplified proof approach is introduced.

Abstract

We consider the problem of the strong convergence, as the viscosity goes to zero, of the solutions to the three-dimensional evolutionary Navier-Stokes equations under a Navier slip-type boundary condition to the solution of the Euler equations under the zero flux boundary condition. In spite of the arbitrarily strong convergence results proved in the flat boundary case, see [4], it was shown in reference [5] that the result is false in general, by constructing an explicit family of smooth initial data in the sphere, for which the result fails. Our aim here is to present a more general, simpler and incisive proof. In particular, counterexamples can be displayed in arbitrary, smooth, domains. As in [5], the proof is reduced to the lack of a suitable persistence property for the Euler equations. This negative result is proved by a completely different approach.