The influence of viscous coefficients on the lifespan of 3-D anisotropic Navier-Stokes system

Abstract

The anisotropic Navier-Stokes system arises in geophysical fluid dynamics, which is derived by changing $-\nu\D$ in the classical Navier-Stokes system to $-(\nu_1\partial^2_1+\nu_2\partial^2_2+\nu_3\partial^2_3)$. Here $\nu_1,\,\nu_2\,,\nu_3$ are the viscous coefficients, which can be different from each other. This reflects that the fluid can behave differently in each direction. The purpose of this paper is to derive some lower bound estimates on the lifespan to such anisotropic Navier-Stokes system. We not only investigate the case when $\nu_1,\,\nu_2\,,\nu_3$ are all positive, but also the more sophisticated cases when one or two of them vanish. We find that in these lower bound estimates, the weights of $\nu_1,\,\nu_2\,,\nu_3$ are not equal. A detailed study of this problem can also help us to have a better understanding of the nonlinear structure in the classical Navier-Stokes system.