Abstract. We consider the incompressible Euler and Navier-Stokes equations in a three-dimensional moving thin domain. Under the assumption that the moving thin domain degenerates into a two-dimensional moving closed surface as the width of the thin domain goes to zero, we give a heuristic derivation of singular limit equations on the degenerate moving surface of the Euler and Navier-Stokes equations in the moving thin domain and investigate relations between their energy structures. We also compare the limit equations with the Euler and Navier-Stokes equations on a stationary manifold, which are described in terms of the Levi-Civita connection.
IntroductionFluid flows in a thin domain appear in many problems of natural sciences, e.g. ocean dynamics, geophysical fluid dynamics, and fluid flows in cell membranes. In the study of the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations in a three-dimensional thin domain mathematical researchers are mainly interested in global existence of a strong solution for large data since a three-dimensional thin domain with sufficiently small width can be considered "almost two-dimensional." It is also important to investigate the behavior of a solution as the width of a thin domain goes to zero. We may naturally ask whether we can derive limit equations as a thin domain degenerates into a two-dimensional set and compare properties of solutions to the original three-dimensional equations and the corresponding two-dimensional limit equations. There are several works studying such problems with a three-dimensional flat thin domain [15,16,29,33] of the formfor small ε > 0, where ω is a two-dimensional domain and g 0 and g 1 are functions on ω, and a three-dimensional thin spherical domain [34] which is a region between two concentric spheres of near radii. (We also refer to [28] for the strategy of analysis of the Euler equations in a flat and spherical thin domain and its limit equations.) However, mathematical studies of an incompressible fluid in a thin domain have not been done in the case where a thin domain and its degenerate set have more complicated geometric structures. (See [27] for the mathematical analysis of a reaction-diffusion equation in a thin domain degenerating into a lower dimensional manifold.) In this paper we are concerned with the incompressible Euler and Navier-Stokes equations in a three-dimensional thin domain that moves in time. The purpose of this paper is to give a heuristic derivation of singular limits of these equations as a moving thin domain degenerates into a two-dimensional moving closed surface. We also investigate relations between the energy structures of the incompressible fluid 2010 Mathematics Subject Classification. Primary: 35Q35, 35R01, 76M45; Secondary: 76A20.