Onsager conjectured that weak solutions of the Euler equations for incompressible fluids in R 3 conserve energy only if they have a certain minimal smoothness, (of order of 1/3 fractional derivatives) and that they dissipate energy if they are rougher. In this paper we prove that energy is conserved for velocities in the function space B 1/3 3,c(N) . We show that this space is sharp in a natural sense. We phrase the energy spectrum in terms of the Littlewood-Paley decomposition and show that the energy flux is controlled by local interactions. This locality is shown to hold also for the helicity flux; moreover, every weak solution of the Euler equations that belongs to B 2/3 3,c(N) conserves helicity. In contrast, in two dimensions, the strong locality of the enstrophy holds only in the ultraviolet range.

In this paper we introduce and study a new model for three–dimensional turbulence, the Leray– α model. This model is inspired by the Lagrangian averaged Navier–Stokes– α model of turbulence (also known Navier–Stokes– α model or the viscous Camassa–Holm equations). As in the case of the Lagrangian averaged Navier–Stokes– α model, the Leray– α model compares successfully with empirical data from turbulent channel and pipe flows, for a wide range of Reynolds numbers. We establish here an upper bound for the dimension of the global attractor (the number of degrees of freedom) of the Leray– α model of the order of ( L / l d ) 12/7 , where L is the size of the domain and l d is the dissipation length–scale. This upper bound is much smaller than what one would expect for three–dimensional models, i.e. ( L / l d ) 3 . This remarkable result suggests that the Leray– α model has a great potential to become a good sub–grid–scale large–eddy simulation model of turbulence. We support this observation by studying, analytically and computationally, the energy spectrum and show that in addition to the usual k −5/3 Kolmogorov power law the inertial range has a steeper power–law spectrum for wavenumbers larger than 1/ α . Finally, we propose a Prandtl–like boundary–layer model, induced by the Leray– α model, and show a very good agreement of this model with empirical data for turbulent boundary layers.

ABSTRACT. We study the dyadic model of the Navier-Stokes equations introduced by Katz and Pavlović. They showed a finite time blow-up in the case where the dissipation degree α is less than 1/4. In this paper we prove the existence of weak solutions for all α, energy inequality for every weak solution with nonnegative initial data starting from any time, local regularity for α > 1/3, and global regularity for α ≥ 1/2. In addition, we prove a finite time blow-up in the case where α < 1/3. It is remarkable that the model with α = 1/3 enjoys the same estimates on the nonlinear term as the 4D Navier-Stokes equations. Finally, we discuss a weak global attractor, which coincides with a maximal bounded invariant set for all α and becomes a strong global attractor for α ≥ 1/2.