A Proof of Onsager鈥檚 Conjecture for the Incompressible Euler Equations

-
Philip Isett, MIT

In an effort to explain how anomalous dissipation of energy occurs in hydrodynamic turbulence, Onsager conjectured in 1949 that weak solutions to the incompressible Euler equations may fail to exhibit conservation of energy if their spatial regularity is below 1/3-H枚lder.听 I will discuss a proof of this conjecture that shows that there are nonzero, (1/3-\epsilon)-H枚lder Euler flows in 3D that have compact support in time. The construction is based on a method known as "convex integration," which has its origins in the work of Nash on isometric embeddings with low codimension and low regularity.听 A version of this method was first developed for the incompressible Euler equations by De Lellis and Sz茅kelyhidi to build H枚lder-continuous Euler flows that fail to conserve energy, and was later improved by Isett and by Buckmaster-De Lellis-Sz茅kelyhidi to obtain further partial results towards Onsager's conjecture.听 The proof of the full conjecture combines convex integration using the 鈥淢ikado flows鈥 introduced by Daneri-Sz茅kelyhidi with a new 鈥済luing approximation鈥 technique.听 The latter technique exploits a special structure in the linearization of the incompressible Euler equations.