Compressible Flow in a Half-Space with Navier Boundary Conditions

Abstract.

We prove the global existence of weak solutions of the Navier–Stokes equations of compressible flow in a half-space with the boundary condition proposed by Navier: the velocity on the boundary is proportional to the tangential component of the stress. This boundary condition allows for the determination of the scalar function in the Helmholtz decomposition of the acceleration density, which in turn is crucial in obtaining pointwise bounds for the density. Initial data and solutions are small in energy-norm with nonnegative densities having arbitrarily large sup-norm. These results generalize previous results for solutions in the whole space and are the first for solutions in this intermediate regularity class in a region with a boundary.