Global bifurcation analysis of mean field equations and the Onsager microcanonical description of two-dimensional turbulence (Q1628782)

The paper addresses the mean field equations on smooth open bounded and connected domains. The author find sufficient conditions for solutions of two long standing open problems. One problem is to describe the global behaviour of the entropy for the mean-field micro-canonical variational principle arising in the Onsager description of two-dimensional turbulence. The other problem is to provide a detailed description of the global branch of solutions emanating from the zero eigenvalue and crossing the eigenvalue at $8 \pi$. \par The author finds a full unbounded interval of strict convexity of the entropy. The micro-canonical variational principle allows the author to find the energy variable to be used for global parametrization of solutions of the mean-field equations. A crucial simlification is obtained by using the variational principle of maximization of the entropy at fixed energy and fixed total vorticity.