Asymptotic stability of the three-dimensional Couette flow for the Stokes-transport equation

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the asymptotic stability of the three-dimensional Couette flow in a stratified fluid governed by the Stokes-transport equation. We observe that a similar lift-up effect to the three-dimensional Navier-Stokes equation near Couette flow destabilizes the system. We find that the inviscid damping type decay due to the Couette flow together with the damping structure caused by the decreasing background density stabilizes the system. More precisely, we prove that if the initial density is close to a linearly decreasing function in the Gevrey-$\frac{1}{s}$ class with $\frac{1}{2}< s\leq 1$, namely, $\|\varrho_{\mathrm{in}}(X,Y,Z)-(-Y)\|_{\mathcal{G}^{s}}\leq \epsilon$, then the perturbed density remains close to $-Y$. Moreover, the associated velocity field converges to Couette flow $(Y, 0, 0)^{\top}$ with a convergence rate of $\frac{1}{\langle t\rangle^3}$.