On the stability of solutions to non-Newtonian Navier--Stokes--Fourier-like systems in the supercritical case

TL;DR

This paper proves the existence and nonlinear stability of global-in-time solutions for a class of non-Newtonian, heat-conducting fluids in three dimensions, even in regimes where regularity and uniqueness are not established.

Contribution

It introduces a novel solution concept that ensures existence and stability for complex non-Newtonian fluid models in supercritical regimes.

Findings

Existence of global-in-time solutions for arbitrary initial data.

Steady-state solutions are nonlinearly stable and attract all solutions over time.

First result combining existence and long-term stability in this challenging setting.

Abstract

We consider a three-dimensional domain occupied by a homogeneous, incompressible, non-Newtonian, heat-conducting fluid with prescribed nonuniform temperature on the boundary and no-slip boundary conditions for the velocity. No external body forces are assumed. The constitutive relation for the Cauchy stress tensor is assumed in a general form that includes, in particular, the power-law and Ladyzhenskaya models with the power-law exponent in the range where neither regularity, uniqueness, nor the validity of the energy equality is known to hold. Nevertheless, we introduce a novel concept of solution suitable for this setting, which enables us to establish the existence of global-in-time solutions for arbitrary physically relevant initial data. A remarkable feature of this formulation is that the steady-state solution is nonlinearly stable: every such solution converges, in a suitable sense, to the steady state as time tends to infinity. This provides the first result that combines existence with long-time stability in this physically relevant yet mathematically challenging regime.