Singularities of Euler flow? Not out of the blue!

Abstract

Does three-dimensional incompressible Euler flow with smooth initial conditions develop a singularity with infinite vorticity after a finite time? This blowup problem is still open. After briefly reviewing what is known and pointing out some of the difficulties, we propose to tackle this issue for the class of flows having analytic initial data for which hypothetical real singularities are preceded by singularities at complex locations. We present some results concerning the nature of complex space singularities in two dimensions and propose a new strategy for the numerical investigation of blowup.(A version of the paper with higher-quality figures is available at http://www.obs-nice.fr/etc7/complex.pdf)

RevTeX4, 10 pages, 9 figures. J.Stat.Phys. in press (updated version)

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