Compressible Navier--Stokes Flow in Schr\"odinger-Type Variables

Abstract

Fluid equations are nonlinear, dissipative, and non-Hamiltonian, which makes their relation to Schr\"odinger evolution and quantum algorithms nontrivial. We derive an exact Eulerian Cole-Hopf-type reformulation of isothermal compressible Navier-Stokes (NS) flow in Schr\"odinger-type amplitude variables. To our knowledge, this gives the first exact Cole-Hopf-type Schr\"odinger-variable reformulation of compressible NS flow. In two dimensions, a Helmholtz decomposition separates the velocity into compressive and vortical potentials, whose logarithmic transforms yield two scalar imaginary-time Schr\"odinger-type equations with nonlinear self-consistent potentials. We show that the mixed density-compressive amplitude $\Psi_\alpha=\rho^\alpha\Theta^{1-2\alpha}$, where $\rho$ is the density, $\Theta$ is the compressive amplitude, and $\alpha\neq 0,\,1/2$, satisfies a nonlinear Schr\"odinger-type equation with a vector-potential-coupled Laplacian. The transformed system is exactly equivalent to compressible NS and is nonlocal only through Helmholtz and Poisson projections. In three dimensions, the density-carrying equation retains the same vector-potential-coupled structure, while the solenoidal sector admits a compressible analogue of Ohkitani's incompressible NS Cole-Hopf formulation. Unlike unitary hydrodynamic Schr\"odinger-flow representations, the present equations are imaginary-time heat or drift-diffusion equations with self-consistent potentials, but they remain an exact change of variables for compressible NS. A two-dimensional Kelvin-Helmholtz unstable shear-layer calculation verifies the transformed equations against a direct compressible NS simulation. The formulation exposes operator structures that may be useful for reduced flow descriptions, quantum algorithms for operator evolution, and quantum partial differential equation solvers.