Steady flows of ideal incompressible fluid

Abstract

A new important relation between fluid mechanics and differential geometry is established. We study smooth steady solutions to the Euler equations with the additional property: the velocity vector is orthogonal to the gradient of the pressure at any point. Such solutions are called Gavrilov flows. Local structure of a Gavrilov flow is described in terms of geometry of isobaric hypersurfaces. In the 3D case, we obtain a system of PDEs for an axisymmetric Gavrilov flow and find consistency conditions for the system. Two numerical examples of axisymmetric Gavrilov flows are presented: with pressure function periodic in the axial direction, and with isobaric surfaces diffeomorphic to the torus.