Nonlinear stability and transition threshold for the planar helical flow
In this paper, we study the nonlinear stability for the 3-D planar helical flow $(δ^2\sin(m_0 y),δ^2\cos(m_0 y),0)$ on torus $\mathbb{T}^3=\{(x_1,x_2,y)\big|x_1,x_2\in \mathbb{T}_{2π}, y\in \mathbb{T}_{2πδ}, δ\geq1\}$ for high Reynolds number $Re$. We prove that if the initial velocity $U_0$ satisfies $$ \left\|U_0-(δ^2\sin(m_0 y),δ^2\cos(m_0 y),0)\right\|_{X_0}\leq c_0 Re^{-7/4} $$ for some $c_0>0$ independent of $Re$, then the solution of 3-D incompressible Navier-Stokes equation is global in time and does not transit away from the planar helical flow. Here $δ>1, m_0=δ^{-1}$ and the norm $\|\cdot\|_{X_0}$ is defined in (1.8). This is a nonlinear stability result for 3-D non-shear flow and the transition threshold is less than $7/4$.