Pullback attractors for a class of extremal solutions of the 3D Navier-Stokes system (Q711025)

The authors consider an optimal control problem associated with the 3D Navier-Stokes system \[ \begin{aligned} &\frac{\partial v}{\partial t}-\nu\Delta v +u\cdot\nabla v +\nabla p=f,\quad \operatorname{div}v=0,\quad x\in \Omega\\ &v|_{\partial \Omega}=0,\quad v(x,\tau)=v_\tau(x), \end{aligned}\tag{1} \] where \(\Omega\subset {\mathbb R}^3\) is a bounded domain with smooth boundary, \(u\) is a control function. It is necessary to find a pair \(\{u,v\}\) such that \(v\) is the solution of (1) associated to \(u\) and \[ J_\tau=\int_\tau^{+\infty}\| v(\cdot,y)-u(\cdot,y)\|\, e^{-\delta y}\,dy\,\rightarrow\inf \] with \(\delta>0\). Two results are obtained in the paper. First, the solutions of the optimal control problem generate a multivalued process which has a pullback attractor. Second, under the unproved assumption of strong global solvability of the 3D Navier-Stokes system the pullback attractor of the process coincides with the global attractor of the semiflow.