On the Characterization, Existence and Uniqueness of Steady Solutions to the Hydrostatic Euler Equations in a Nozzle

Abstract

Incompressible Euler flows in narrow domains, in which the horizontal length scale is much larger than other scales, play an important role in many different applications, and their leading-order behavior can be described by the hydrostatic Euler equations. In this paper, we show that steady solutions of the hydrostatic Euler equations in an infinite strip strictly away from stagnation must be shear flows. Furthermore, we prove the existence, uniqueness, and asymptotic behavior of global steady solutions to the hydrostatic Euler equations in general nozzles. In terms of stream function formulation, the hydrostatic Euler equations can be written as a degenerate elliptic equation, for which the Liouville type theorem in a strip is a consequence of the analysis for the second order ordinary differential equation (ODE). The analysis on the associated ODE also helps determine the far field behavior of solutions in general nozzles, which plays an important role in guaranteeing the equivalence of stream function formulation. One of the key ingredients for the analysis on flows in a general nozzle is a new transformation, which combines a change of variable and an Euler–Lagrange transformation. With the aid of this new transformation, the solutions in the new coordinates enjoy explicit representations so that the regularity with respect to the horizontal variable can be gained in a clear way.