No label defined (Q4938436)

The theorem presented in this paper is the direct proof of a result proved by \textit{C. J. Amick} [Indiana Univ. Math. J. 33, 817-830 (1984; Zbl 0563.35059)] with a reductio ad absurdum. The problem is to find solutions to the stationary Navier-Stokes equations in a two dimensional connected bounded domain which is symmetric with respect to a line (which will be the \(x_2\) axis in the sequel). The boundary \(\partial\Omega\) is constituted by a finite number of smooth simple close curves \(\Gamma_0\), \(\Gamma_1,\ldots,\Gamma_N\), where \(\Gamma_0\) encloses all the others. The main interest is that the boundary datum \(\beta\in H^{1/2}(\partial\Omega)\) satisfies a general out-flow condition \[ \int_{\partial\Omega}\beta\cdot n=0, \] thus allowing the out-flow of each \(\Gamma_j\) to be not zero. Under the stringent out-flow condition \[ \int_{\Gamma_j}\beta\cdot n=0,\qquad j=0,1,\ldots N, \] it is well known that the boundary value problem has a solution, even without any symmetry. The main interest of the paper relies in the fact that, with the help of symmetry, it is possible to show that there exists a solution which is symmetric in a suitable sense. The main theorem of the paper says that if the boundary datum is symmetric, then for any \(\varepsilon>0\) there exists a symmetric and divergence-free extension \(b_\varepsilon\) of \(\beta\) such that \(b_\varepsilon\) is zero outside a thin band around \(\partial\Omega\) and \[ |\int_\Omega b_\varepsilon\cdot(v\cdot\nabla)v|\leq \varepsilon\|\nabla v\|^2_{L^2}\qquad\text{for all }v\in V. \] By this result the author can deduce first an a-priori estimate for the solution \(u\) and then the existence of a solution \((u,p)\) of the boundary value problem which is symmetric and such that \(p\) is even with respect to \(x_1\). Here symmetry means a vector field \(u=(u_1,u_2)\) such that \(u_1\) is odd with respect to \(x_1\) and \(u_2\) is even with respect to \(x_1\). For the entire collection see [Zbl 0927.00032].