Quantitative partial regularity of the Navier-Stokes equations and applications

TL;DR

This paper enhances the understanding of partial regularity in Navier-Stokes equations by providing a quantitative, logarithmic improvement of the Caffarelli-Kohn-Nirenberg theorem, with applications to axially symmetric flows.

Contribution

It introduces a quantitative approach to partial regularity, establishing new regularity intervals and improved criteria for suitable weak solutions of Navier-Stokes equations.

Findings

Logarithmic improvement of partial regularity theorem.

Existence of regularity intervals depending exponentially on local energies.

Enhanced regularity criteria for axially symmetric solutions.

Abstract

We prove a logarithmic improvement of the Caffarelli-Kohn-Nirenberg partial regularity theorem for the Navier-Stokes equations. The key idea is to find a quantitative counterpart for the absolute continuity of the dissipation energy using the pigeonhole principle. Based on the same method, for any suitable weak solution, we show the existence of intervals of regularity in one spatial direction with length depending exponentially on the natural local energies of the solution. Then, we give two applications of the latter result in the axially symmetric case. The first one is a local quantitative regularity criterion for suitable weak solutions with small swirl. The second one is a slightly improved one-point CKN criterion which implies all known (slightly supercritical) Type I regularity results in the literature.