Chaos from symmetry: Navier Stokes equations, Beltrami fields and the universal classifying crystallographic group (Q6115701)

The authors describe the application of a group-theoretical approach based on the notion of Universal Classifying Group to the classical field of mathematical fluid mechanics. The authors start from the Navier-Stokes equations for an ideal, incompressible, and viscous fluid: \(\frac{\partial }{ \partial t}u+u\cdot \nabla u=-\nabla p+\nu \Delta u+f\), \(\nabla \cdot u=0\), that they write in vector notation. They extend here to the case \(\nu \neq 0\) the previous paper by the first author and \textit{A.S. Sorin} [Phys. Part. Nucl. 46, No. 4, 497--632 (2015; \url{doi:10.1134/S1063779615040036})]. They add the fluid trajectories, defined as the solutions to the first-order differential system: \(\frac{d}{dt }x_{i}(t)=u_{i}(x(t),t)\). These fluid trajectories are brought to smooth maps \(\mathcal{S}\) from the real line \(\mathbb{R}_{t}\) to a smooth Riemaniann manifold \(\mathcal{M}_{g}\) endowed with a metric \(g\), the velocity field \(u(x,t)\) being turned into a time-evolving vector field on \( \mathcal{M}\) that is into a smooth family of sections of the tangent bundle \( TM\): \(\forall t\in \mathbb{R}:u^{i}(x,t)\partial _{i}=U(t)\in \Gamma ( \mathcal{TM},\mathcal{M})\). To any \(U(t)\) the authors associate a family of sections of the cotangent bundle \(\mathcal{TM}\) defined by the following time-evolving one-form: \(\forall t\in \mathbb{R}:\Omega ^{\lbrack U]}(t)=g_{ij}u^{i}(x,t)dx^{j}\in \Gamma (\mathcal{T^{\ast }M},\mathcal{M})\). The Navier-Stokes equation can be rewritten in the index-free reformulation \( -d(p+\frac{1}{2}\left\Vert U\right\Vert ^{2})=\partial _{t}[U]+i_{U}\cdot d\Omega ^{[U]}-\nu \Delta _{g}\Omega ^{\lbrack U]}-f\), where \( \Delta _{g}\) is the Laplace-Beltrami operator on \(1\)-forms, written in index-free notation as: \(\Delta _{g}=\delta d+d\delta \), \(\delta =\star _{g}d\star _{g}\), \(\star _{g}\) being the Hodge duality operation in the background of the metric \(g\). The authors observe that the Bernoulli function \(H=p+\frac{1}{2}\left\Vert U\right\Vert ^{2}\) is constant along the trajectories. They recall Arnold's theorem linked to the Beltrami condition. They then recall notions from differential geometry, among which that of contact manifold and of contact structure, of harmonic analysis and of group theory, among which that of lattice and of dual lattice. They illustrate these notions with many examples. Coming to the main parts of their paper, the authors first consider the Euler equations and Beltrami fields in \( \mathfrak{b}\)-manifolds written in a geometric way as: \(i_{U}\cdot d\Omega ^{U}=-dH_{B}\), where the 1-form \(U\) is the contact form, the velocity field \( U\) is its Reeb field and \(H_{B}\) is the Bernoulli function. They add the divergenceless condition: \(\nabla \cdot U=\frac{1}{\sqrt{\mathrm{det}g}}\partial _{l}( \sqrt{\mathrm{det}g}U^{l})=0\), where \(g_{ij}\) is the metric tensor of the three-manifold. They observe that the Euler equations reduce to: \( i_{U}\cdot d\Omega ^{U}=-dH_{B}\), \(d(i_{U}\cdot \operatorname{Vol}g)=0\). They consider the ABC model vector field they introduced in the above-mentionned paper, which allows computing \(^{\mathfrak{b}}\)\textbf{V}\(_{ABC}\), whence the preceding divergenceless condition. They observe that the classical ABC-flows are obtained from the lowest lying momentum orbit of length 6 which produces an irreducible 6-dimensional representation of the Universal Classifying Group: D23 [G1536, 6] and they draw numerical computations of Beltrami vector field invariant and streamlines. In the last part of their paper, the authors draw computations which lead to exact solutions to the Navier-Stokes equations with non-vanishing viscosity within this geometric framework, called Navier-Stokes Beltrami generalized steady flows. They first observe that one can choose the pressure as: \(p(x,t)=h-\frac{1}{2}\left\Vert U(x,t)\right\Vert ^{2}=h-\mathrm{const}\times \frac{\Omega ^{\lbrack U]}\wedge \star _{g}\Omega ^{\lbrack U]}}{\frac{1}{3!}\mathrm{det}(g)dx\wedge dy\wedge dz}\). Taking the driving force as: \(f=-\nu \mu \Omega ^{\lbrack u^{0}]}\) and the contact form (Reeb field) as follows \(\Omega ^{\lbrack U]}=\Omega ^{\lbrack u^{0}]}+exp[-\mu ^{2}t]\Omega ^{\lbrack u^{t}]}\), the generalized steady flow condition \(\partial _{t}\Omega ^{\lbrack U]}=\nu \Delta _{g}\Omega ^{\lbrack U]}+f\) is satisfied and the velocity field \(U(x,t)=u^{0}(x)+\mathrm{exp}[- \mu ^{2}t]u^{t}(x)\) fulfills the Navier-Stokes equations.