Stability of the Couette flow under the 2D steady Navier-Stokes flow

Abstract

In this note, we investigate the stability property of shear flows under the 2D stationary Navier-Stokes equations, and we obtain that the Couette flow $(y,0)$ is stable under the space of $\mathcal{D}^{1,q}(\mathbb{R}^2)$ for any $1<q<\infty$ and unstable in the space of $\mathcal{D}^{1,\infty}(\mathbb{R}^2)$. A key observation is the anisotropic cut-off function. We also consider the Poiseuille flow $(y^2,0)$, which is stable in $\mathcal{D}^{1,q}(\mathbb{R}^2)$ with $\frac43<q\leq4.$