On the existence of distributional potentials

We present proofs for the existence of distributional potentials $F\in{\mathcal D}'(Ω)$ for distributional vector fields $G\in{\mathcal D}'(Ω)^n$, i.e. $\operatorname{grad} F=G$, where $Ω$ is an open subset of ${\mathbb R}^n$. The hypothesis in these proofs is the compatibility condition $\partial_jG_k=\partial_kG_j$ for all $j,k\in\{1,\dots,n\}$, if $Ω$ is simply connected, and a stronger condition in the general case. A key ingredient of our treatment is the use of the Bogovskii formula, assigning vector fields $v\in{\mathcal D}(Ω)^n$ with $\operatorname{div} v=φ$ to functions $φ\in{\mathcal D}(Ω)$ with $\int φ(x)\,\mathrm{d}x=0$. The results are applied to properties of Hilbert spaces of functions occurring in the treatment of the Stokes operator and the Navier--Stokes equations.

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