Solvability of equations for motion of a vortex filament with or without axial flow (Q1387733)

The authors study the motion of a vortex filament which is approximately described by a generalization of the localized induction equation \[ x_t= x_s\times x_{ss} +a \Bigl[x_{sss} +\textstyle {{3\over 2}} x_{ss} \times(x_s \times x_{ss}) \Bigr], \] where \(a\) is a parameter, and \(x=x (s,t)\) represents the position of a point in the filament in \(\mathbb{R}^3\) as a vector-valued function of arc-length \(s\in\mathbb{R}\) and time \(t\). Using uniformly valid a priori estimates obtained for a specially constructed parabolic regularization, the authors establish the unique solvability of the Cauchy problem for the above equation for \(a\neq 0\) and show that for \(a\to 0\) (vanishing axial flow) the solutions converge to that of the localized induction equation \((a=0)\). Similar results are obtained in the spatially periodic case.