Time-dependent incompressible viscous flows around a rigid body: estimates of spatial decay independent of boundary conditions (Q2161505)

Let \(\Omega \subset \mathbb R^3\) be an unbounded domain with connected Lipschitz boundary. The author considers the Navier-Stokes system with Oseen term \(\partial_t u-\Delta_x u +\tau \partial_{x_1} u+\tau(U\cdot \nabla_x )u +\tau(u\cdot \nabla )U +\tau(u\cdot \nabla_x )u + \nabla_x \pi=f\), \(\operatorname{div}_x u=0\) in \(\Omega\) \((0<t<T_0)\). Here, \(U\) is the velocity part of the stationary Navier-Stokes system with Oseen term \(-\Delta U +\tau \partial_1 U+\tau(U\cdot \nabla )U + \nabla_x \Pi=F\), \(\operatorname{div} U=0\) in \(\Omega\). No boundary conditions are imposed. The author considers \(L^2\)-strong solutions when \(u \in L^{\infty}\) in time and \(L^{\kappa}\)-integrable in space for \(\kappa \in [1,3)\), and some integrable conditions of gradient terms in space. It is shown that if the right-hand side of the equation and the initial data decay pointwise in space sufficiently fast, then \(u\) and \(\nabla_x u\) also decay pointwise in space, with rates which are higher than those provided by previous theories.