Stability of the equilibria for spatially periodic flows in porous media (Q5945667)

The authors study questions of stability related to flows in incompressible resp. compressible porous media. In both cases one associates with a smooth function \(f(x)\), \(x\in\mathbb{R}^n\) such that \(\inf f(x)>0\), \(x\in\mathbb{R}^n\), a domain \(\widetilde\Omega_f= \{(x,y)\in \mathbb{R}^{n+1}\mid 0 <y<f(x)\), \(x\in\mathbb{R}^n\}\) and a boundary \(\widetilde\Gamma_f= \{(x,f(x))\mid x \in\mathbb{R}^n\}\), \(\widetilde \Gamma_0= \mathbb{R}^n\times \{0\}\). In the compressible case one considers the system: \[ \Delta_{n+1} u=0\text{ in }\widetilde\Omega_f,\;\partial_{n+1}u=0 \text{ on }\widetilde\Gamma_0,\;u\bigl(x,f(t,x) \bigr)=f(t,x);\tag{1} \] \[ \partial_t f(t,.)+\biggl(1+\bigl |\nabla_nf(t,.)\bigr|^2 \biggr)^{1/2} \partial_\nu u\bigl(. ,f(t,.)\bigr)=0;\;f(0,.)=f_0, \] where \(\Delta_{n+1}\) is the Laplacian on \((x,y)\in \mathbb{R}^{n+1}\), while \(\nabla_n\) is the gradient on \(x=(x_1,\dots, x_n)\); \(\partial_\nu\) is the derivative along the outer unit normal on \(\widetilde\Gamma_f\). In order to investigate the linearized stability of (1) and to avoid continuous spectra the authors cast (1) into a functional frame which imposes periodic boundary conditions in the unbounded space directions, i.e., they require \(f(t,.)\), \(f_0,u\) to be \(2\pi\)-periodic with respect to \(x_1,\dots,x_n\). With the \(n\)-torus \(T^n\) this setting induces domains \[ \Omega_{f(t)}= \bigl\{(x,y)\in T^n\times\mathbb{R}\mid 0<y<f(t,x) \bigr\}, \tag{2} \] \[ \Gamma_{f(t)}=\biggl\{ \bigl(x,f(t,x) \bigr)\mid x\in T^n\biggr\}. \] The system under scrutiny, referred to as (1)+(2), is based on the equations in (1) but considered on \(\Omega_{f(t)}\), \(\Gamma_{f(t)}\) rather than on \(\widetilde \Omega_f\), \(\widetilde\Gamma_f\). We set \[ g=f-c,\;c=(2\pi)^{-n}\int_{T^n} f_0(x) \,dx. \tag{3} \] The next step amounts to transform \((1)+(2)\) into an evolution equation involving \(g\) in (3) alone. This rather technical step is accomplished by methods introduced by one of the authors in earlier papers. It leads to a reformulation of \((1)+(2)\) in abstract form \[ \partial_t g+\varphi(g)=0,\;g(0)= g_0;\;\varphi(0)=0,\tag{4} \] where \(g\) lies in a suitable function space \(F\) of periodic functions (i.e. functions on \(T^n)\) while the nonlinearity \(\varphi\) is related to \((1)+(2)\) in some technical way. One now has to study the linearized stability of the trivial solution \(g(=g_0)=0\) of (4). A difficulty is that one has: \[ \sigma\bigl( d\varphi(0)\bigr) \subseteq\bigl\{z\mid\text{re}(z)\geq 0\bigr\},\;0 \in\sigma \bigl(d\varphi (0)\bigr), \tag{5} \] \(d\varphi\) the Fréchet derivative of \(\varphi\). This is overcome by the authors with the aid of the observation that \(\varphi(.)\) and thus \(d\varphi(0)\) commutes with the projection \(P\) projecting onto the subspace of \(g\in F\) such that \(g-(2\pi)^{-n} \int_{T^n} gdx=0\). By combining these facts, exponential stability of \(g=0\) finally results (Theorem 2.6). In the compressible case the elliptic equation \(\Delta_{n+1}u=0\) in (1) is replaced by the parabolic equation \[ \partial_tu- \Delta_nu= 0\text{ on }\widetilde \Omega_{f(t)}, \tag{6} \] while the rest in (1) remains unaltered. By imposing again a periodic setting analogous to the above one is led to an abstract evolution equation of type (4), \[ \partial_t z+\pi(z)=0,\;z(0)=z_0. \tag{7} \] A difficulty now is that (7) does not admit an invariant subspace as was the case with (4). This difficulty is circumvented by the authors with the aid of an appropriate stable manifold construction (Lemma 3.6), too involved to be discussed here.