A note on generalized flows (Q1404831)

In a number of physically relevant situations, the uniqueness of solutions of differential equations can not be established due to non-Lipschitzian right-hand sides. Then, the problem of constructing generalized flows occurs. The authors consider generalized flows as random fields constructed by assigning a probability measure on the set of all maps associated with the solution of related ordinary differential equation. They discuss some properties of such generalized flows, including a series of illustrative examples. As their main conclusion, in general, it is quite likely that such a mathematically abstract concept of generalized flows is not physically relevant because of a significant lack of desirable properties such as stability with respect to perturbations or Markovianity in time. In fact, the limiting generalized flows related to regularization by mollifiers depend sensitively on used regularization procedures and are non-Markovian for generic regularizations. In particular, simple examples illustrate clearly the origin of anomalous dissipation via branching or coalescence, etc. However, Kraichnan's model leads to generalized flows which can be very robust against regularization procedures used for their construction in the incrompressible case. Thus, the question which additional properties of the velocity field cause more universality in the behavior of generalized flows remains open.