On the time decay of the solutions of the Navier-Stokes system (Q2480725)

This paper deals with the relationships between the time decay for the right-hand side and for the solution of the well-known Navier-Stokes system \(u_t-\Delta u+ u\nabla u+\nabla p= f\) in \(\Omega\times(0, \infty)\), with the initial condition \(u(0)=\emptyset\) on the bounded domain \(\Omega\) in \(\mathbb{R}^N\), where \(p\) is the pressure. More precisely, this should be understood for \(1< p<\infty\) and \(q> N\) in the sense of the relationship between \(\rho\)-exponential decay of \(f\) in \(L^p(\mathbb{R}_+,L^q(\Omega)^N)\), i.e., \(e^{s\rho}f\in L^p(\mathbb{R}_+, L^q(\Omega)^N)\) with \(\rho: \mathbb{R}_+\to \mathbb{R}_+\), \(\rho'\) bounded, for some \(s> 0\) and the \(\rho\)-exponential decay for a solution \(u\) in \(W^{1,p}(\mathbb{R}_+, L^q_\sigma(\Omega))\cap L^p(\mathbb{R}_+, W^q_\sigma(\Omega))\), i.e., \(s^{\tau\rho}u\in W^{1,p}(\mathbb{R}_+, L^q_\sigma(\Omega))\cap L^p(\mathbb{R}_+, W^q_\sigma(\Omega))\) for some \(\tau> 0\), where \(W^{1,p}\) and \(W^q_\sigma\) are the usual Sobolev spaces in this theory (and \(\sigma\) means divergence free). Results are only valid for solutions with this regularity. The main result is that there is a \(\lambda_+\in (0,\infty]\) depending only upon \(\rho\) such that \(\tau= s\) if \(s<\lambda_+\) and \(\tau= \lambda_+-\varepsilon\) for any \(\varepsilon> 0\) if \(s\geq \lambda_+\). Here \(\rho\) represents the ``type'' of decay, and its ``amount''. In particular, if \(\rho(t)= t\) (corresponding to exponential decay), then \(\lambda_+= \lambda_1\), the first eigenvalue for the Stokes operator. Proofs are based on some recent and interesting ``abstract'' work by the second author. The Stokes system is written as \(L(u)u= P_qf\), where \(P_q\) is the Helmholtz projection and \(L(u)\) is a linear Fredholm operator. First, some exponent \(0< s_u\) is obtained and then a tricky argument of bootstrap type shows that \(s\) is actually independent of \(u\) and depends only upon \(s\) and \(\rho\). Results concerning power-like decay are obtained as well.