Lake equations with an evanescent or emergent island (Q2076192)

The authors consider a lake \((\Omega ,b)\) consisting of a domain \(\Omega \subset \mathbb{R}^{2}\) and a depth function \(b:\overline{\Omega} \rightarrow \mathbb{R}^{+}\), and the lake equations \((\partial_{t}(bv)+\operatorname{div}(bv\otimes v)+b\nabla p=0\), \(\operatorname{div}(bv)=0\), where \(v:\Omega \rightarrow \mathbb{R}^{2}\) is the velocity field and \(p\) the pressure. They add the boundary condition \((bv)\cdot n=0\), where \(n\) is the outward-pointing unit normal vector on \(\partial \Omega\). The purpose of the paper is to derive the asymptotic lake equations in the case of an evanescent or emergent island. The authors define the notions of lakes without degenerated islands and with one non-degenerated island, or without degenerated islands and without a non-degenerated island, or of punctured lake in the case where the non-degenerated island shrinks to a point. They define a global weak solution to the vorticity formulation of the lake equations on the lake \((\Omega ,b)\) with initial condition \((v^{0},\omega^{0})\) as a pair \((v,\omega)\) with \(\omega \in L^{\infty}(\mathbb{R}_{+}\times \Omega)\), \(\sqrt{b}v\in L^{\infty}(\mathbb{R}_{+};L^{2}(\Omega))\), which satisfies \(\operatorname{div}(bv)=0\) in \(\Omega\) and \((bv)\cdot n=0\) on \(\partial \Omega\) in a weak sense, \(\operatorname{curl}v=b\omega\) in the sense of distributions on \(\mathbb{R}_{+}\times \Omega\), and the variational equality: \[ \int_{0}^{\infty}\int_{\Omega}\partial_{t}\Phi b\omega dxdt+\int_{0}^{\infty}\int_{\Omega}\nabla \Phi \cdot bv\omega dxdt+\int_{\Omega}b\omega^{0}\Phi (0)dx=0, \] for all \(\Phi \in C_{c}^{\infty}([0,\infty)\times \Omega)\). They quote from the paper by \textit{C. Lacave} et al. [J. Math. Fluid Mech. 16, No. 2, 375--406 (2014; Zbl 1291.35225)] the existence of a global weak solution \((v,\omega)\) to the lake equations in the vorticity formulation on the lake \((\Omega ,b)\) for any initial vorticity \(\omega^{0}\in L^{\infty}(\Omega)\) and initial circulation \(\gamma \in \mathbb{R}\). In the case of an evanescent island, they prove that if \((\Omega_{\varepsilon},b_{\varepsilon})\) is a sequence of lakes with one non-degenerated island which converges to a punctured lake \((\Omega ,b)\), and for given \(\gamma \in \mathbb{R}\) and \(\omega^{0}\in L^{\infty}(\Omega)\), the global weak solution \((v_{\varepsilon},\omega_{\varepsilon})\) with initial vorticity \(\omega^{0}\) and circulation \(\gamma\) has a subsequence such that \(\sqrt{b_{\varepsilon}}v_{\varepsilon}\rightarrow \sqrt{b}v\) strongly in \(L_{\mathrm{loc}}^{2}(\mathbb{R}_{+};L^{2}(\Omega))\), \(\omega_{\varepsilon}\rightharpoonup^{\ast}\omega\) weakly-\(^{\ast}\) in \(L^{\infty}(\mathbb{R}_{+}\times \Omega)\), where \((v,\omega)\) is a solution to the vorticity formulation in \(\mathbb{R}_{+}\times \Omega\), except that \(\operatorname{curl}v=b\omega +\gamma \delta_{0}\) in \(\mathcal{D}^{\prime}([0,\infty)\times \Omega)\). In addition, \(v\) satisfies a Hodge decomposition and \(v\in L^{\infty}(\mathbb{R}_{+};L_{\mathrm{loc}}^{p}(\Omega))\) with \(1/p=1/2+1/q\), where \(q\in \lbrack 2,4/a_{1})\). If \(a_{0}\) further belongs to \([0,1)\), then \(v\in L^{\infty}(\mathbb{R}_{+};L^{p}(\Omega))\). Here \(a_{0}\) and \(a_{1}\) are associated to growth properties of the depth function \(b\). The authors prove a quite similar result in the case of an emerging island, starting from a sequence of lakes without an island. For the proof of these asymptotic behavior results, the authors introduce the Hodge-type decomposition and the notion of \(b_{\varepsilon}\)-harmonic functions, they prove uniform estimates on the stream functions, and they use compactness arguments in appropriate spaces. In the last part of their paper, they establish velocity formulation on the support of the depth function and a formal velocity formulation on the limit lake.