Global Well-posedness and Regularity of the Dynamical Prandtl Equation

Abstract

In this paper, we study the dynamical Prandtl equation, which plays an important role in the study of the vanishing viscosity limit of the Navier--Stokes equations. Our focus is on the (Sobolev) well-posedness regime, where the given data satisfy a crucial monotonicity condition. In this case, local classical solutions have been constructed in the pioneering works of Oleinik \cite{O68,OS99}. More recently, global weak solutions were obtained in \cite{XZ04} by Xin and Zhang, and in \cite{XZZ24} by Xin, Zhang, and Zhao, where the uniqueness and interior H"older estimates of the solutions were established (in Crocco coordinates). Using a precise description of the fundamental solution to the Kolmogorov equation in the half-space, we first obtain the H"older regularity of local weak solutions up-to-boundary. We also provide a detailed proof of higher-order regularity estimates together with $W^{2,p}$ Sobolev estimates and $H^{s}$ hypoelliptic estimates, which are nontrivial. Up-to-boundary smoothness of solutions (in Crocco coordinates) is important in order to conclude the smoothness of the Prandtl solutions in the physical variables, even in the interior. It is also physically significant for applications to the Boundary Layer Theory where the dynamical Prandtl equation is essential. Using these smoothing estimates, we then prove the global existence and regularity of classical solutions to the dynamical Prandtl equation under monotonicity assumptions, which was listed by Oleinik and Samokhin in \cite{OS99} as one of the open problems. We also develop a self-contained local existence theory using weighted energy estimates and further expand the theory of global weak solutions. The main point is to incorporate all physical types of asymptotic matching of the boundary layer with the outer flow, which is expected to be useful for applications to the Navier--Stokes equations.