Search

The Rayleigh–Bénard system with stress-free boundary conditions is shown to have a global attractor in each affine space where velocity has fixed spatial average. The physical problem is shown to be equivalent to one with periodic boundary conditions and certain symmetries. This enables a Gronwall estimate on enstrophy. That estimate is then used to bound the L2 norm of the temperature gradient on the global attractor, which, in turn, is used to find a bounding region for the attractor in the enstrophy–palinstrophy plane. All final bounds are algebraic in the viscosity and thermal diffusivity, a significant improvement over previously established estimates. The sharpness of the bounds are tested with numerical simulations.

We construct a determining form for the surface quasi-geostrophic (SQG) equation with subcritical dissipation. In particular, we show that the global attractor for this equation can be embedded in the long-time dynamics of an ordinary differential equation (ODE) called a determining form. Indeed, there is a one-to-one correspondence between the trajectories in the global attractor of the SQG equation and the steady state solutions of the determining form. The determining form is a true ODE in the sense that its vector field is Lipschitz. This is shown by combining De Giorgi techniques and elementary harmonic analysis. Finally, we provide elementary proofs of the existence of time-periodic solutions, steady state solutions, as well as the existence of finitely many determining parameters for the SQG equation.

An intrinsic property of almost any physical measuring device is that it makes observations which are slightly blurred in time. The authors consider a nudging-based approach for data assimilation that constructs an approximate solution based on a feedback control mechanism that is designed to account for observations that have been blurred by a moving time average. Analysis of this nudging model in the context of the subcritical surface quasi-geostrophic equation shows, provided the time-averaging window is sufficiently small and the resolution of the observations sufficiently fine, that the approximating solution converges exponentially fast to the observed solution over time. In particular, the authors demonstrate that observational data with a small blur in time possess no significant obstructions to data assimilation provided that the nudging properly takes the time averaging into account. Two key ingredients in our analysis are additional bounded-ness properties for the relevant interpolant observation operators and a non-local Gronwall inequality.

We construct a determining form for the 2D Rayleigh-B\'enard (RB) system in astrip with solid horizontal boundaries, in the cases of no-slip and stress-freeboundary conditions. The determining form is an ODE in a Banach space oftrajectories whose steady states comprise the long-time dynamics of the RBsystem. In fact, solutions on the global attractor of the RB system can befurther identified through the zeros of a scalar equation to which the ODEreduces for each initial trajectory. The twist in this work is that thetrajectories are for the velocity field only, which in turn determines thecorresponding trajectories of the temperature.

The evolution of a determining form for the 2D Navier–Stokes equations (NSE) which is an ODE on a space of trajectories is completely described. It is proved that at every stage of its evolution, the solution is a convex combination of the initial trajectory and a chosen, fixed steady state, with a dynamical convexity parameter θ, which will be called the characteristic determining parameter. That is, we show a separation of variables formula for the solution of the determining form. Moreover, for a given initial trajectory, the dynamics of the infinite-dimensional determining form are equivalent to those of the characteristic determining parameter θ which is governed by a one-dimensional ODE. This one-dimensional ODE is used to show that if the solution to the determining form converges to the fixed state it does so no faster than O(τ- 1 / 2) , otherwise it converges to a projection of some other trajectory in the global attractor of the NSE, but no faster than O(τ- 1) , as τ→ ∞, where τ is the evolutionary variable in determining form. The one-dimensional ODE is also exploited in computations which suggest that the one-sided convergence rate estimates are in fact achieved. The ODE is then modified to accelerate the convergence to an exponential rate. It is shown that the zeros of the scalar function that governs the dynamics of θ, which are called characteristic determining values, identify in a unique fashion the trajectories in the global attractor of the 2D NSE.

We show that the global attractor of a weakly damped and driven Korteweg–de Vries equation (KdV) is embedded in the long-time dynamics of an ordinary differential equation called a determining form. In particular, there is a one-to-one identification of the trajectories in the global attractor of the damped and driven KdV and the steady state solutions of the determining form. Moreover, we analyze a data assimilation algorithm (down-scaling) for the weakly damped and driven KdV. We show that given a certain number of low Fourier modes of a reference solution of the KdV equation, the algorithm recovers the full reference solution at an exponential rate in time.

In this article, we prove that data assimilation by feedback nudging can be achieved for the three-dimensional quasi-geostrophic equation in a simplified scenario using only large spatial scale observables on the dynamical boundary. On this boundary, a scalar unknown (buoyancy or surface temperature of the fluid) satisfies the surface quasi-geostrophic equation. The feedback nudging is done on this two-dimensional model, yet ultimately synchronizes the streamfunction of the three-dimensional flow. The main analytical difficulties are due to the presence of a nonlocal dissipative operator in the surface quasi-geostrophic equation. This is overcome by exploiting a suitable partition of unity, the modulus of continuity characterization of Sobolev space norms, and the Littlewood-Paley decomposition to ultimately establish various boundedness and approximation-of-identity properties for the observation operators.

An algorithm for continuous data assimilation for the two-dimensional Bénard convection problem is introduced and analyzed. It is inspired by the data assimilation algorithm developed for the Navier-Stokes equations, which allows for the implementation of variety of observables: low Fourier modes, nodal values, finite volume averages, and finite elements. The novelty here is that the observed data is obtained for the velocity field alone; i.e. no temperature measurements are needed for this algorithm. We provide conditions on the spatial resolution of the observed data, under the assumption that the observed data is free of noise, which are sufficient to show that the solution of the algorithm approaches, at an exponential rate, the unique exact unknown solution of the Bénard convection problem associated with the observed (finite dimensional projection of) velocity.

In this paper we show that the global attractor of the 1D damped, driven, nonlinear Schrödinger equation (NLS) is embedded in the long-time dynamics of a determining form. The determining form is an ordinary differential equation in a space of trajectories X=Cb1(R,PmH2) where Pm is the L2-projector onto the span of the first m Fourier modes. There is a one-to-one identification with the trajectories in the global attractor of the NLS and the steady states of the determining form. We also give an improved estimate for the number of the determining modes.

The determining modes for the two-dimensional incompressible Navier-Stokesequations (NSE) are shown to satisfy an ordinary differential equation of theform $dv/dt=F(v)$, in the Banach space, $X$, of all bounded continuousfunctions of the variable $s\in\mathbb{R}$ with values in certainfinite-dimensional linear space. This new evolution ODE, named {\it determiningform}, induces an infinite-dimensional dynamical system in the space $X$ whichis noteworthy for two reasons. One is that $F$ is globally Lipschitz from $X$into itself. The other is that the long-term dynamics of the determining formcontains that of the NSE; the traveling wave solutions of the determining form,i.e., those of the form $v(t,s)=v_0(t+s)$, correspond exactly to initial data$v_0$ that are projections of solutions of the global attractor of the NSE ontothe determining modes. The determining form is also shown to be dissipative; anestimate for the radius of an absorbing ball is derived in terms of the numberof determining modes and the Grashof number (a dimensionless physicalparameter). Finally, a unified approach is outlined for an ODE satisfied by avariety of other determining parameters such as nodal values, finite volumes,and finite elements.