Existence of knotted vortex tubes in steady Euler flows (Q2340955)

The purpose of this paper is the proof of a theorem which states that knotted and linked thin vortex tubes for steady solutions to the incompressible Euler equation in \(\mathbb{R}^3\) exist. The proof consists of three steps, which are gradually improved in the paper. {\parindent=4mm \begin{itemize} \item[--] The construction of a local Beltrami field, which satisfies the Beltrami equation \(\mathrm{curl}~v=\lambda v\), and has a set of certain invariant tori. \item [--] It is proved that these invariant tori are ``robust'' in a certain sense. \item [--] It is proved that the local Beltrami field can be approximated by a global field, which satisfies the Beltrami equation in \(\mathbb{R}^3\), and drops off at infinity in an optimal way. \end{itemize}} The proofs use Lyapunov stability, Cauchy-Schwartz, Poincaré, Jensen and Sobolev inequalities, Hodge decomposition, Riesz representation theorem, Fredholm alternative, Poincaré map, Hahn-Banach theorem, Riesz-Markov theorem, Poissons equation and spherical Bessel functions. Finally, applications to Navier-Stokes equation are briefly discussed.