Paper detail

Long time interface dynamics for gravity Stokes flow

We study the dynamics of the interface given by two incompressible viscous fluids in the Stokes regime filling a 2D horizontally periodic strip. The fluids are subject to the gravity force and the density difference induces the dynamics of the interface. We derive the contour dynamics formulation for this problem through a $x_1$-periodic version of the Stokeslet. Using this new system, we show local-in-time well-posedness when the initial interface is described by a curve with no self-intersections and $C^{1+γ}$ Hölder regularity, $0<γ<1$. This well-posedness result holds regardless of the Rayleigh-Taylor stability of the physical system. In addition, global-in-time existence and decay to the flat stationary state is proved in the Rayleigh-Taylor stable regime for small initial data. Finally, in the Rayleigh-Taylor unstable regime, we construct a wide family of smooth solutions with exponential in time growth for an arbitrary large interval of existence. Remarkably, the initial data leading to this exponential growth possibly lack any symmetry.