Infinitely many Leray-Hopf solutions for the fractional Navier-Stokes equations

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the ill-posedness of certain fractional Navier-Stokes equations by constructing infinitely many solutions with specific regularity and energy dissipation properties, using convex integration techniques.

Contribution

It introduces a novel application of convex integration to fractional Navier-Stokes equations with b3<1/3, establishing ill-posedness and constructing dissipative solutions as limits.

Findings

Infinitely many solutions exist for b3<1/3 with the same initial data.

Solutions are Hf6lder continuous and dissipate energy rapidly.

Existence of dissipative Euler solutions as limits of fractional Navier-Stokes solutions.

Abstract

We prove the ill-posedness for the Leray-Hopf weak solutions of the incompressible and ipodissipative Navier-Stokes equations, when the power of the diffusive term $(-\Delta)^\gamma$ is $\gamma < \frac{1}{3}$. We construct infinitely many solutions, starting from the same initial datum, which belong to $C_{x,t}^{\frac{1}{3}-}$ and strictly dissipate their energy in small time intervals. The proof exploits the "convex integration scheme" introduced by C. De Lellis and L. Sz\'ekelyhidi for the incompressible Euler equations, joining these ideas with new stability estimates for a class of non-local advection-diffusion equations and a local (in time) well-posedness result for the fractional Navier-Stokes system. Moreover we show the existence of dissipative H\"older continuous solutions of Euler equations that can be obtained as a vanishing viscosity limit of Leray-Hopf weak solutions of a suitable fractional Navier-Stokes equations.