Metastability of Kolmogorov flows and inviscid damping of shear flows (Q1710988)

The paper addresses both linear and nonlinear stability of Kolmogorov flows, i.e., flows with a sinusoidal profile, on two-dimensional tori with rectangular and square cross-section shapes. It is demonstrated that non-shear perturbations added to the underlying flow decay much faster than perturbations governed by viscosity. Accordingly, the stability is analyzed, using the Hamiltonian structure of the Euler equations corresponding to the Navier-Stokes ones under consideration. As a result, a sharp stability criterion is derived for several kinds of the shear flow.