Boundary layers and the vanishing viscosity limit for incompressible 2D flow

Abstract

This manuscript is a survey on results related to boundary layers and the vanishing viscosity limit for incompressible flow. It is the lecture notes for a 10 hour minicourse given at the Morningside Center, Academia Sinica, Beijing, PRC from 11/28 to 12/07, 2007. The main topics covered are: a derivation of Prandtl's boundary layer equation; an outline of the rigorous theory of Prandtl's equation, without proofs; Kato's criterion for the vanishing viscosity limit; the vanishing viscosity limit with Navier friction condition; rigorous boundary layer theory for the Navier friction condition and boundary layers for flows in a rotating cylinder.