Asymptotic stability in the critical space of 2D monotone shear flow in the viscous fluid

TL;DR

This paper establishes the asymptotic stability and enhanced dissipation of 2D monotone shear flows in viscous fluids with small viscosity, identifying a sharp stability threshold in a critical function space.

Contribution

It proves the sharp stability threshold $ u^{1/2}$ for perturbations in the critical space $H^{log}_xL^2_y$ and constructs a novel time-dependent wave operator for the Rayleigh operator.

Findings

Proves asymptotic stability for perturbations close to shear flows.

Establishes enhanced dissipation and inviscid damping with explicit decay rates.

Identifies the sharp stability threshold in the critical space.

Abstract

In this paper, we study the long-time behavior of the solutions to the two-dimensional incompressible free Navier Stokes equation (without forcing) with small viscosity $\nu$, when the initial data is close to stable monotone shear flows. We prove the asymptotic stability and obtain the sharp stability threshold $\nu^{\frac{1}{2}}$ for perturbations in the critical space $H^{log}_xL^2_y$. Specifically, if the initial velocity $V_{in}$ and the corresponding vorticity $W_{in}$ are $\nu^{\frac{1}{2}}$-close to the shear flow $(b_{in}(y),0)$ in the critical space, i.e., $\|V_{in}-(b_{in}(y),0)\|_{L_{x,y}^2}+\|W_{in}-(-\partial_yb_{in})\|_{H^{log}_xL^2_y}\leq \epsilon \nu^{\frac{1}{2}}$, then the velocity $V(t)$ stay $\nu^{\frac{1}{2}}$-close to a shear flow $(b(t,y),0)$ that solves the free heat equation $(\partial_t-\nu\partial_{yy})b(t,y)=0$. We also prove the enhanced dissipation and inviscid damping, namely, the nonzero modes of vorticity and velocity decay in the following sense $\|W_{\neq}\|_{L^2}\lesssim \epsilon\nu^{\frac{1}{2}}e^{-c\nu^{\frac{1}{3}}t}$ and $\|V_{\neq}\|_{L^2_tL^2_{x,y}}\lesssim \epsilon\nu^{\frac{1}{2}}$. In the proof, we construct a time-dependent wave operator corresponding to the Rayleigh operator $b(t,y)\partial_x-\partial_{yy}b(t,y)\partial_x\Delta^{-1}$, which could be useful in future studies.