On the solution of Stokes equation on regions with corners

Abstract

In Stokes flow, the stream function associated with the velocity of the fluid satisfies the biharmonic equation. The detailed behavior of solutions to the biharmonic equation on regions with corners has been historically difficult to characterize. The problem was first examined by Lord Rayleigh in 1920; in 1973, the existence of infinite oscillations in the domain Green's function was proven in the case of the right angle by S.~Osher. In this paper, we observe that, when the biharmonic equation is formulated as a boundary integral equation, the solutions are representable by rapidly convergent series of the form $\sum_{j} ( c_{j} t^{\mu_{j}} \sin{(\beta_{j} \log{(t)})} + d_{j} t^{\mu_{j}} \cos{(\beta_{j} \log{(t)})} )$, where $t$ is the distance from the corner and the parameters $\mu_{j},\beta_{j}$ are real, and are determined via an explicit formula depending on the angle at the corner. In addition to being analytically perspicuous, these representations lend themselves to the construction of highly accurate and efficient numerical discretizations, significantly reducing the number of degrees of freedom required for the solution of the corresponding integral equations. The results are illustrated by several numerical examples.