Enhanced dissipation and inviscid damping in the inviscid limit of the Navier-Stokes equations near the two dimensional Couette flow (Q5962882)

The authors discuss small perturbations of the 2D incompressible Navier-Stokes equations \(\omega_t+y \partial_x \omega+U \cdot \nabla \omega =\mathrm{Re}^{-1} \Delta \omega\) where \(\omega\) denotes the vorticity perturbation to the Couette flow. The velocity \(U=(-\partial_y,\partial_x) \Delta^{-1} \omega\) satisfies the Navier-Stokes equations. The linearized equations were investigated by \textit{Rayleigh} [Proc. L. M. S. XI, 57--70 (1880; JFM 12.0711.02)] and \textit{L. Kelvin } [``Stability of fluid motion-rectilinear motion of viscous fluid between two parallel plates'', Philos. Mag. 5, No. 24, 188 (1887)]. At high Reynolds number \(\mathrm{Re}\), the authors prove that the solution behaves qualitatively like two dimensional Euler for times \(t \preceq \mathrm{Re}^{1/3}\). For times \(t \succeq \mathrm{Re}^{1/3}\) the viscosity becomes dominant and the streamwise dependence of the vorticity is rapidly eliminated by an enhanced dissipation effect. Afterwards, the remaining shear flow decays on very long time scales \(t \succeq \mathrm{Re}\) back to the Couette flow.