On the Stokes problem in exterior domains: the maximum modulus theorem (Q379868)

The authors develop a solution scheme to study the Stokes initial boundary value problem in \((0, T) \times \Omega\), where \(\Omega \subseteq \mathbb{R}^n\), \(n \geq 3\), is an exterior domain, assuming that the initial data belongs to \(L^\infty({\Omega})\) and has null divergence in the weak sense. The maximum modulus theorem for the corresponding solutions is formulated. The proof of this result is analogous to the one proved by Abe-Giga for bounded domains. Here, the proof is developed by duality arguments and employing the semi-group properties of the resolving operator on \(L^1({\Omega})\). The results are similar to those proved by Solonnikov by means of the potential theory. The mathematical theory developed here will be useful for researchers in mathematics, but the paper lacks numerical experiments.