Existence and uniqueness of isothermal, slightly compressible stratified flow (Q2232914)

The flow in a horizontal layer of a fluid heated from below is governed by the Oberbeck-Boussinesq system. The basic assumption is that the fluid is incompressible, i.e., \(\operatorname{div} v = 0\) and the density depends only on the temperature \(T\). On the other hand, this contradicts the Gibbs law and it turns out that the density should be also pressure-dependent and, consequently, the incompressibility should be replaced by \(\operatorname{div}\varrho v = 0\). The presented paper deals with a generalization of the Oberback-Boussinesq system where the author takes into account the compressiblity of the fluid. The fluid is assumed to be contained in a domain bordered by two horizontal planes which have the same temperature \(T\). In such case the generalized Oberbeck-Boussinesq equation takes form \[ \nabla \cdot (e^{-\beta z}) v = 0, \] \[\frac 1{Pr}(\partial_t v + v\cdot \nabla v) - e^{\beta z}\Delta v = -\nabla \Pi - e^{\beta z}\gamma\beta^2v^zk, \] which is complemented with the stress-free boundary condition. Here \(v\) and \(\Pi\) are unknowns, \(z\) is the vertical spatial coordinate and \(\beta,\ Pr,\ \gamma\) are nondimensional quantities. The article contains three existence results. First, the existence of a weak solution, second, the existence of the strong solution in two dimensions, and third, the existence of the strong solution in three dimensions for small initial data.