Generalized Resolvent Estimates of the Stokes Equations with First Order Boundary Condition in a General Domain

Abstract

In this paper, we prove unique existence of solutions to the generalized resolvent problem of the Stokes operator with first order boundary condition in a general domain ${\Omega}$ of the N-dimensional Eulidean space ${\mathbb{R}^N, N \geq 2}$. This type of problem arises in the mathematical study of the flow of a viscous incompressible one-phase fluid with free surface. Moreover, we prove uniform estimates of solutions with respect to resolvent parameter ${\lambda}$ varying in a sector ${\Sigma_{\sigma, \lambda_0} = \{\lambda \in \mathbb{C} \mid |\arg \lambda| < \pi-\sigma, \enskip |\lambda| \geq \lambda_0\}}$, where ${0 < \sigma < \pi/2}$ and ${\lambda_0 \geq 1}$. The essential assumption of this paper is the existence of a unique solution to a suitable weak Dirichlet problem, namely it is assumed the unique existence of solution ${p \in \hat{W}^1_{q, \Gamma}(\Omega)}$ to the variational problem: ${(\nabla p, \nabla \varphi) = (f, \nabla \varphi)}$ for any ${\varphi \in \hat W^1_{q', \Gamma}(\Omega)}$. Here, ${1 < q < \infty, q' = q/(q-1), \hat W^1_{q, \Gamma}(\Omega)}$ is the closure of ${W^1_{q, \Gamma}(\Omega) = \{ p \in W^1_q(\Omega) \mid p|_\Gamma = 0\}}$ by the semi-norm ${\|\nabla \cdot \|_{L_q(\Omega)}}$, and ${\Gamma}$ is the boundary of ${\Omega}$. In fact, we show that the unique solvability of such a Dirichlet problem is necessary for the unique existence of a solution to the resolvent problem with uniform estimate with respect to resolvent parameter varying in ${(\lambda_0, \infty)}$. Our assumption is satisfied for any ${q \in (1, \infty)}$ by the following domains: whole space, half space, layer, bounded domains, exterior domains, perturbed half space, perturbed layer, but for a general domain, we do not know any result about the unique existence of solutions to the weak Dirichlet problem except for q =  2.