Space-time decay of Navier-Stokes flows invariant under rotations (Q1890243)

The asymptotic behaviour of viscous flows of incompressible fluids is studied. These flows are described by the Navier-Stokes equations of the following form: \[ \partial_tu-\Delta u+ \mathbb{P}\nabla\cdot(u\otimes u)= 0,\quad u(x,0)= a(x),\quad \nabla\cdot u= 0. \] Here \(u(\cdot, t): \mathbb{R}^d\to\mathbb{R}^d\) \((d\geq 2)\) denotes the velocity field and \(\mathbb{P}\) is the Leray-Hopf projector onto the soleinodal vectors field. The purpose of this paper is to provide a systematic study of the connection between symmetry and space-time decay of viscous flows. Starting point is the observation that the Navier-Stokes equations are invariant under the transformations of the orthogonal group, exactly only discrete subgroups of the orthogonal group are considered. For example, for \(d= 3\), solutions which are invariant under the complete symmetry group of a prism in general do not decay faster than \(|x|^{-4}\). On the other hand, flows with polyhedral symmetry decay much faster. For each subgroup, the precise decay rates in space-time of the velocity field are given.