Some stability and instability issues in the dynamics of highly rotating fluids

TL;DR

This thesis investigates the complex dynamics of highly rotating fluids, analyzing multi-scale limits of the Navier-Stokes-Fourier system and the Euler equations, revealing conditions leading to different reduced models.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of the asymptotic limits of rotating fluid systems, including new convergence results for various regimes and the treatment of ill-prepared initial data.

Findings

Limit dynamics described by Oberbeck-Boussinesq or quasi-geostrophic systems.

Convergence of Euler equations to quasi-homogeneous systems in high rotation.

Method extends to the full parameter range, including critical cases.

Abstract

In the present thesis, we are interested in the description of the dynamics of flows on large scales. In this context, the fluids are governed by rotational, weak compressibility and stratification effects, whose importance is measured by adimensional numbers: the Rossby, Mach and Froude numbers. The first part of the thesis is dedicated to the analysis of a 3D multi-scale problem called the full Navier-Stokes-Fourier system where variations in density and temperature are considered and in addition we take into account the Coriolis, centrifugal and gravitational forces. We study, in the framework of weak solutions, the combined incompressible and fast rotation limits in the regime of small Mach, Froude and Rossby numbers and for general ill-prepared initial data. In the case when the Mach number is of higher order than the Rossby number, we prove that the limit dynamics is described by an incompressible Oberbeck-Boussinesq type system. Conversely, when the Mach and Rossby numbers have the same order of magnitude, we show convergence towards a quasi-geostrophic type equation. Following "le fil rouge" of the asymptotic analysis, in the second part of the thesis, we examine the effects of high rotation for the 2D incompressible density-dependent Euler system. Now, the main goal is to perform the singular limit in the fast rotation regime, showing the convergence of the Euler equations to a quasi-homogeneous type system. The proof of convergence of the two primitive problems towards the reduced models is based on a compensated compactness argument. The key point is to use the structure of the underlying system of Poincar\'e waves in order to identify some compactness properties for suitable quantities. Compared to previous results, our method enables to treat the whole range of parameters in the multi-scale problem, and also to reach and go beyond the critical choice $Fr=\sqrt{Ma}$.