Special Session 2: New frontiers in the compressible mathematical fluid mechanics and thermodynamics

Unconditional stability of equilibria in thermally driven compressible fluids
Yong Lyu
Nanjing University
Peoples Rep of China
Co-Author(s):    Eduard Feireis, Yongzhong Sun
Abstract:
We show that small perturbations of the spatially homogeneous equilibrium of a thermally driven compressible viscous fluid are globally stable. Specifically, any weak solution of the evolutionary Navier--Stokes--Fourier system driven by thermal convection converges to an equilibrium as time goes to infinity. The main difficulty to overcome is the fact the problem does not admit any obvious Lyapunov function. The result applies, in particular, to the Rayleigh-Benard convection problem.