A Principle of Maximum Entropy for the Navier-Stokes Equations

Abstract

A principle of maximum entropy is proposed in the context of viscous incompressible flow in Eulerian coordinates. The relative entropy functional, defined over the space of $L^2$ divergence-free velocity fields, is maximized relative to alternate measures supported over the energy--enstrophy surface. Since thermodynamic equilibrium distributions are characterized by maximum entropy, connections are drawn with stationary statistical solutions of the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations. Special emphasis is on the correspondence with the final statistics described by Kolmogorov's theory of fully developed turbulence.