Systematic Search For Extreme and Singular Behavior in Some Fundamental Models of Fluid Mechanics

This review article offers a survey of the research program focused on a systematic computational search for extreme and potentially singular behavior in hydrodynamic models motivated by open questions concerning the possibility of a finite-time blow-up in the solutions of the Navier-Stokes system. Inspired by the seminal work of Lu & Doering (2008), we sought such extreme behavior by solving PDE optimization problems with objective functionals chosen based on certain conditional regularity results and a priori estimates available for different models. No evidence for singularity formation was found in extreme Navier-Stokes flows constructed in this manner in 3D. We also discuss the results obtained for 1D Burgers and 2D Navier-Stokes systems, and while singularities are ruled out in these flows, the results presented provide interesting insights about sharpness of different energy-type estimates known for these systems. Connections to other bounding techniques are also briefly discussed.