Global solution to inhomogeneous incompressible Navier-Stokes equations on thin domain (Q2011261)

This article addresses global existence, uniqueness and regularity for the inhomogeneous incompressible Navier-Stokes equations \[ \begin{cases} \partial_t \rho +u\cdot\nabla \rho = 0 \\ \rho(\partial_t u + u\cdot\nabla u) -\Delta u +\nabla P = 0 \\ \nabla \cdot u =0 \end{cases}. \] The problem is posed over the direct product of the plane and a periodic strip with period \(\varepsilon\). The main result of the paper states that, if \(\varepsilon\) is sufficiently small compared to a constant which depends on the upper and lower bounds on the initial density, and certain other quantities associated with the initial data are controlled, then there exists a unique, global, smooth solution. This result is motivated by and generalizes results for the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations where \(\rho=1\). These results can be viewed as perturbations of the 2d theory, where the problems are globally well posed.