Eigenvalues of the Stokes operator versus the Dirichlet Laplacian in the plane (Q1047585)

Let \(\Omega\) be a bounded domain in \(\mathbb R^2\) with locally Lipschitz boundary \(\Gamma\). Let \(\sigma_D\) be the spectrum of the negative Laplacian with homogeneous Dirichlet boundary conditions and let \(\sigma_S\) be the spectrum of the Stokes operator with homogeneous Dirichlet boundary conditions. Each spectrum is discrete with \[ \begin{aligned} \sigma_D&=\{\lambda_j\}_{j=1}^{\infty},\quad \text{with}\;0<\lambda_1<\lambda_2\leq\cdots,\\ \sigma_S&=\{\nu_j\}_{j=1}^{\infty},\quad \text{with}\;0<\nu_1\leq\nu_2\leq\cdots,\end{aligned} \] and each eigenvalue repeated according to its multiplicity. Then the first main result of the paper is that for all positive integers \(k\), \(\lambda_k<\nu_k\). Further, let \(\gamma_k(\theta)\) be the \(k\)-th eigenvalue of the Stokes operator with boundary conditions \((1-\theta)\omega(u)+\theta u\cdot\tau=u\cdot n=0\), where \(\omega(u)=\partial_1u^2-\partial_2 u^1\) is the vorticity of \(u\), and \(\tau\) and \(n\) are the tangential and normal unit vectors, respectively. Then, the second main result of the paper reads as follows. If \(\Gamma\) is \(C^2\) and has a finite number of components, for each positive \(k\), the function \(\gamma_k\) is a strictly increasing continuous bijection from \([0,1]\) onto \([\lambda_k,\nu_k]\).