Global existence of weak solutions for the anisotropic compressible Stokes system (Q2214929)

The authors consider the quasi-stationary compressible Stokes equations \(\partial _{t}\rho +div(\rho u)=0\), \(-\operatorname{div}\tau +a\nabla \rho^{\gamma }=f\), \(\gamma >1\), where \(u\) is the fluid velocity field, \(\rho \) the fluid density and \(\tau \) the viscous stress tensor defined through \(\tau _{ij}(t,x,D(u))=A_{ijkl}(t,x)D[u]_{kl}\), for a matrix \(A_{ijkl}(t,x)\in W^{1,\infty }((0,T)\times \mathbb{T}^{3})\). The initial condition \(\rho \mid_{t=0}=\rho _{0}\geq 0\) is imposed. The main result of the paper proves that if \(f\in W^{1,2}(0,T;L^{6/5}(\mathbb{T}^{3})\) satisfies \(\int_{\mathbb{T}^{3}}f(t)dx=0\), if \(\rho _{0}\geq 0\) further satisfies \(0<\int_{\mathbb{T}^{3}}\rho _{0}dx<+\infty \) and \(\int_{\mathbb{T}^{3}}\rho _{0}^{\gamma}dx<+\infty \), there exists a global weak solution \((\rho ,u)\) to the above system with \(\rho \in C([0,T];L_{weak}^{\gamma }(\mathbb{T}^{3}))\cap L^{2\gamma }((0,T)\times \mathbb{T}^{3})\), \(u\in L^{2}((0,T);H^{1}(\mathbb{T} ^{3}))\) and \(\int_{\mathbb{T}^{3}}udx=0\). The authors assume that \(A\) satisfies some symmetry properties and that the tensor \(\tau \) satisfies regularity hypotheses. For the proof, the authors first define a finite-energy weak solution to the problem \(\partial _{t}\rho +\operatorname{div}(\rho u)=0\), \(-\operatorname{div}\tau +\nabla \rho ^{\gamma }=f\), \(\rho \mid_{t=0}=\rho _{0}\geq 0\), as a pair \((\rho ,u)\in L^{\infty }(0,T;L^{\gamma }(\mathbb{T}^{3}))\times L^{2}(0,T;H^{1}(\mathbb{T}^{3}))\) which satisfies this problem in the sense of distributions, the mass conservation identity \(\int_{\mathbb{T}^{3}}\rho (t)=\int_{\mathbb{T}^{3}}\rho _{0}\) and the energy inequality \(\int_{\mathbb{T}^{3}}\rho ^{\gamma }+\int_{0}^{t}\int_{\mathbb{T}^{3}}\tau :\nabla udx\leq \int_{\mathbb{T}^{3}}\rho _{0}^{\gamma }+\int_{0}^{t}\int_{\mathbb{T}^{3}}u\cdot f\). They prove estimates and a stability property for sequences of finite-energy weak solutions, the limit satisfying an identity which involves a defect measure associated to the pressure. For the construction of solutions to the original problem, the authors introduce a regularized system with diffusion and drag terms in the density equation: \(\partial _{t}\rho +\operatorname{div}(\rho \omega _{\delta }\ast u)=\varepsilon \Delta \rho -\varepsilon \rho ^{2\gamma }-\varepsilon \rho^{2\gamma +1}-\varepsilon \rho ^{3}\), \(\mathcal{A}u+\nabla \omega _{\delta}\ast \rho ^{\gamma }=f\), where \(\omega _{\delta }\) is a regularizing kernel and \(\mathcal{A}\) is the application \(v\rightarrow -div\tau (t,x,D(v))\). The authors prove the global existence and uniqueness of a strong solution on \((0,T)\) using a fixed point argument. They pass to the limit with respect to the regularization parameter \(\delta \), then with respect to \(\varepsilon \), thanks to estimates and a weak stability result for the perturbed system, to obtain a global solution to the quasi-stationary compressible Stokes system. The paper ends with possible extensions of the main result to close systems.