Finite speed axially symmetric Navier-Stokes flows passing a cone

TL;DR

This paper proves that under certain symmetry and small swirl conditions, axially symmetric Navier-Stokes flows in a conical exterior domain remain globally regular, preventing finite-time blowup, and constructs an unbounded finite-energy solution in a cusp domain.

Contribution

It establishes global regularity for a class of axially symmetric Navier-Stokes solutions with partial smallness in swirl, in a conical exterior domain, without restrictions on other velocity components.

Findings

No finite-time blowup occurs under the given conditions.

Constructs an unbounded finite-energy solution in a cusp domain.

Supports the idea that smallness in one velocity component can ensure regularity.

Abstract

Let $D$ be the exterior of a cone inside a ball, with its altitude angle at most $\pi/6$ in $\mathbb{R}^3$, which touches the $x_3$ axis at the origin. For any initial value $v_0 = v_{0,r}e_{r} + v_{0,\theta} e_{\theta} + v_{0,3} e_{3}$ in a $C^2(\overline{D})$ class, which has the usual even-odd-odd symmetry in the $x_3$ variable and has the partial smallness only in the swirl direction: $ | r v_{0, \theta} | \leq \frac{1}{100}$, the axially symmetric Navier-Stokes equations (ASNS) with Navier-Hodge-Lions slip boundary condition has a finite-energy solution that stays bounded for all time. In particular, no finite-time blowup of the fluid velocity occurs. Compared with standard smallness assumptions on the initial velocity, no size restriction is made on the components $v_{0,r}$ and $v_{0,3}$. In a broad sense, this result appears to solve $2/3$ of the regularity problem of ASNS in such domains in the class of solutions with the above symmetry. Equivalently, this result is connected to the general open question which asks that if an absolute smallness of one component of the initial velocity implies the global smoothness, see e.g. page 873 in \cite{CZZ17}. Our result seems to give a positive answer in a special setting. As a byproduct, we also construct an unbounded solution of the forced Navier Stokes equation in a special cusp domain that has finite energy. The forcing term, with the scaling factor of $-1$, is in the standard regularity class. This result confirms the intuition that if the channel of a fluid is very thin, arbitrarily high speed in the classical sense can be attained under a mildly singular force which is physically reasonable in view that Newtonian gravity and Coulomb force have scaling factor $-2$.