An alternative approach to regularity for the Navier-Stokes equations in critical spaces (Q532447)

The authors study the regularity of the solutions to the 3D incompressible Navier-Stokes equations. They say that \(u(t)=u(x,t)\) is a mild solution to the Navier-Stokes equations, if it is described in the form: \[ u(t)=e^{(t-t_0 )\Delta} u_0+ \int_{t_0 }^t e^{(t-s)\Delta} {\mathbb P}\nabla \cdot \big(-u(s)\otimes u(s)\big)\,ds \] for some divergence-free \(u_0 =u_0 (x)\). Here \({\mathbb P}\) denotes the Helmholtz projection operator. Recently \textit{L. Escauriaza}, \textit{G. Serëgin} and \textit{V. Shverak} [Russ. Math. Surv. 58, No. 2, 211--250 (2003); translation from Usp. Mat. Nauk 58, No. 2, 3--44 (2003; Zbl 1064.35134)] proved that a mild solution does not become singular in finite time, if it remains bounded in \(\dot{H}^{1/2} \). The present article gives another proof of the same result, using the notion of critical elements, which was recently developed by one of the authors. Let \(u_0 \in \dot{H}^{1/2} \) satisfy \(\nabla\cdot u_0 =0\), and let \(u(t)\) be a mild solution to the Navier-Stokes equation satisfying \(u(0) = u_0\). Considering a kind of life-span \(T^* =T^* (u_0 )\) for this initial value problem, one defines \(|||u||| = \sup_{t\in [0,T^* ]} \|u(t)\|_{\dot{H}^{1/2}} \). Roughly speaking, the main result is that \(|||u||| <\infty\) means \(T^* (u_0 )=\infty\). The authors prove this by contradiction, in the following way. If the main result is false, there should exist a critical solution \(u_c (t)\) concerning the above norm \(|||\cdot |||\). Such critical solutions should form a compact family, which leads to contradiction by a rigidity theory.