48th Annual Spring Lecture Series

Transport, Mixing and Fluids

May 5 - 7, 2023 (7:30 am - 6:00 pm CDT)

Please register here! Partial travel funding for participants will be supported by a grant from the NSF.

This conference is in Cooperation with AWM and supports the Welcoming Environment Statement of the Association for Women in Mathematics.

Principal Speaker: Anna Mazzucato

Professor of Mathematics and Distinguished Senior Scholar of Penn State University

Spring Lecture Series 2023 poster Public Lecture | Mathematical Models: a World of Insight

May 5, 2023 (6:00 pm CDT)

Public Lecturer: Lisette de Pillis

Norman F. Sprague Professor of Life Sciences and Professor of Mathematics, Harvey Mudd College

Note: No registration is necessary for the public lecture.

Women in Mathematics Panel

Friday, May 5, 2023 (5:15pm CDT)

Invited Speakers

Alexey Cheskidov (University of Illinois-Chicago)

Theodore Drivas (Stony Brook University)

Zoran Grujić (University of Virginia)

Siming He (University of South Carolina)

Weiwei Hu (University of Georgia)

Gautam Iyer (Carnegie-Melon University)

Cecilia Mondaini (Drexel University)

Sam Punshon-Smith (Tulane University)

Christian Seis (University of Münster)

Andrej Zlatoš (University of California San Diego)

Organizers

Ariel Barton (aeb019@uark.edu)

Associate Professor of Mathematical Sciences, University of Arkansas

Zachary Bradshaw (zb002@uark.edu)

Associate Professor of Mathematical Sciences, University of Arkansas

Schedule of Talks

All talks will be in the Donald W. Reynolds Center Auditorium, 145 N Buchanan Ave, Fayetteville, AR 72701

Participants may also join remotely using the following Zoom link: https://uark.zoom.us/j/81382171116?pwd=NWlZVkFiYVkzeEdTMlhITy9Db3k4UT09

Friday, May 5th

Saturday, May 6th

Sunday, May 7th

8:00 Registration—Coffee/Tea 8:00 Coffee/Tea
8:15 Coffee/Tea
8:25 Opening remarks 8:25 Andrej Zlatoš
8:40 Weiwei Hu 8:40 Christian Seis
9:20 Anna Mazzucato
9:35 Anna Mazzucato 9:35 Anna Mazzucato
10:50 Gautam Iyer
11:05 Cecilia Mondaini 11:05 Siming He
1:30 Zoran Grujic 1:30 Theodore Drivas
2:25 Anna Mazzucato 2:25 Anna Mazzucato
3:45 Alexey Cheskidov 3:45 Sam Punshon-Smith
5:15 Women in Mathematics panel 4:55 Short graduate student talks
6:00 Public lecture 7:00 Banquet

Abstracts of Talks

Alexey Cheskidov, University of Illinois-Chicago

Title: Turbulent solutions of fluid equations

Abstract: In the past couple of decades, mathematical fluid dynamics has been highlighted by numerous constructions of solutions to fluid equations that exhibit pathological or wild behavior. These include the loss of the energy balance, non-uniqueness, singularity formation, and dissipation anomaly. Interesting from the mathematical point of view, providing counterexamples to various well-posedness results in supercritical spaces, such constructions are becoming more and more relevant from the physical point of view as well. Indeed, a fundamental physical property of turbulent flows is the existence of the energy cascade. Conjectured by Kolmogorov, it has been observed both experimentally and numerically, but had been difficult to produce analytically. In this talk I will overview new developments in discovering not only pathological mathematically, but also physically realistic solutions of fluid equations.

Theodore Drivas, Stony Brook University

Title: Irreversible features of the 2D Euler equations

Abstract: We will discuss aspects of the long term dynamics of 2d perfect fluids. As an application of a certain stability of twisting for general hamiltonian flows, we will show generic loss of smoothness near stable steady states, the existence of many wandering points, aging of the Lagrangian flow, along with other examples of complex behavior such as indefinite perimeter growth for special vortex patches.

Zoran Grujić, University of Virginia

Title: On criticality of the Navier-Stokes diffusion

Abstract: The main purpose of this talk is to present a mathematical evidence of criticality of the Navier-Stokes diffusion. In particular, considering a plausible candidate for a finite time blow-up, a two-parameter family of the dynamically rescaled profiles, we show that as soon as the hyper-diffusion exponent is greater than one, a new region in the parameter space (completely in the super-critical regime) is ruled out. As a matter of fact, the region is a neighborhood (in the parameter space) of the self-similar profile, i.e., the ‘approximately self-similar’ blow-up is ruled out for all hyper-diffusive models.

Siming He, University of South Carolina

Title: Enhanced dissipation and blow-up suppression in a chemotaxis-fluid system

Abstract: In this talk, we will present a coupled Patlak-Keller-Segel-Navier-Stokes (PKS-NS) system that models chemotaxis phenomena in the fluid. The system exhibits critical threshold phenomena. For example, if the total population of the cell density is less than 8π, then the solutions exist globally in time. Moreover, finite time blowup solutions exist if this population constraint is violated. We further show that globally regular solutions with arbitrary large cell populations exist. The primary blowup suppression mechanism is the shear flow mixing induced enhanced dissipation phenomena.

Weiwei Hu, University of Georgia

Title: Control Design for Optimal Mixing via Flow Advection

Abstract: The question of what velocity fields effectively enhance or prevent transport and mixing, or steer a scalar field to the desired distribution, is of great interest and fundamental importance to the fluid mechanics community. In this talk, we mainly discuss the problem of optimal mixing of an inhomogeneous distribution of a scalar field via active control of the flow velocity, governed by the Stokes or the Navier-Stokes equations. Specifically, we consider that the velocity field is steered by a control input that acts tangentially on the boundary of the domain through the Navier slip boundary conditions. This is motivated by mixing within a cavity or vessel by rotating or moving walls. Our main objective is to design a Navier slip boundary control for achieving optimal mixing. Non-dissipative scalars governed by the transport equation will be our main focus. In the absence of molecular diffusion, mixing is purely determined by the flow advection. This essentially leads to a nonlinear control and optimization problem. A rigorous proof of the existence of an optimal control and the first-order necessary conditions for optimality will be addressed. Moreover, a feedback law (sub-optimal) will be also constructed based on interpolation of the optimality conditions. Finally, numerical experiments will be presented to demonstrate our ideas and control designs.

Gautam Iyer, Carnegie-Melon University

Title: Enhanced Dissipation and Mixing

Abstract: In many systems where convection and diffusion are both present, they work together and enhance energy dissipation. I will talk about how enhanced dissipation can be used to control certain nonlinear effects, and how enhanced dissipation can be quantified using both deterministic and probabilistic techniques.

Cecilia Mondaini, Drexel University

Title: Long-time statistics of SPDEs: mixing and numerical approximation

Abstract: In analyzing complex systems modeled by stochastic partial differential equations (SPDEs), such as certain turbulent fluid flows, an important question concerns their long-time behavior. In particular, one is typically interested in determining how long it takes for the system to settle into statistical equilibrium, and in investigating efficient numerical schemes for approximating such long-time statistics. In this talk, I will present two general results in this direction, and illustrate them with an application to the 2D stochastic Navier-Stokes equations. Most importantly, our approach does not require gradient bounds for the underlying Markov semigroup as in previous works, and thus provides a flexible formulation for further applications. This is based on joint work with Nathan Glatt-Holtz (Tulane U).

Sam Punshon-Smith, Tulane University

Title: Advection diffusion by Markovian velocity fields: chaos, mixing and norm equivalence of decay rates

Abstract: In this talk I will survey several results on the mixing and decay properties of passive scalars advected by ergodic Markovian velocity fields including, but not limited to, the stochastic Navier-Stokes equations in 2D. As a general principle, when such a velocity field is sufficiently regular and non-degenerate (in the sense that it explores a large enough set of velocity fields) then one should expect the corresponding Lagrangian flow to be both chaotic (has a positive Lyapunov exponent) and exponentially mixing. In addition, the mixing rate will be stable under the addition of diffusion, despite being a singular perturbation of the associated scalar equation. I will explain a general framework using rigidity of group actions and spectral properties of certain Markov semi-groups where this principle can be rigorously verified in the case of stochastically forced fluids as well as in the case of random alternating shears (Pierrehumbert flow). I will then present a general condition under which the asymptotic decay rates for a compact linear evolution are norm independent. Applying this to the advection diffusion equation implies that the asymptotic decay rates are independent of the norm used to measure decay (i.e. H2, L2, H-1). Therefore upper and lower bounds on the decay rates in one norm (e.g. mixing) immediately implies bounds on the decay rates in any other norm. This work is joint with Jacob Bedrossian and Alex Blumenthal.

Christian Seis, University of Münster

Title: Mixing by randomly driven vortices

Abstract: We consider passive scalar transport in a two-dimensional domain in the case where the velocity is generated by a randomly moving vortex. Using purely Eulerian arguments, we prove that the velocity field is exponentially mixing. Moreover, in the presence of diffusion, we show enhanced dissipation at a rate that is independent of the diffusivity constant. This is joint work with Víctor Navarro-Fernández and André Schlichting.

Andrej Zlatoš, University of California San Diego

Title: Euler equations on general planar domains

Abstract: Bounded vorticity solutions to the 2D Euler equations on singular domains are typically not close to Lipschitz near boundary singularities, which makes their uniqueness a difficult open problem. I will present a general sufficient condition on the geometry of the domain that guarantees global uniqueness for all solutions initially constant near the boundary. This condition is only slightly more restrictive than exclusion of corners with angles greater than π and, in particular, is satisfied by all convex domains. Its proof is based on showing that fluid particle trajectories for general bounded vorticity solutions cannot reach the boundary in finite time. The condition also turns out to be sharp in the latter sense: there are domains that come arbitrarily close to satisfying it and on which particle trajectories can reach the boundary in finite time. The above results also extend to signed vorticity solutions on fairly irregular domains that may even contain infinitely many corners with angles greater than π.

Updated 4/20/2023