Nonlinear stability for active suspensions

Helge Dietert, Michele Coti Zelati, David Gérard-Varet

Published 2024-04-02Version 1

This paper is devoted to the nonlinear analysis of a kinetic model introduced by Saintillan and Shelley to describe suspensions of active rodlike particles in viscous flows. We investigate the stability of the constant state $\Psi(t,x,p) = \frac{1}{4\pi} $ corresponding to a distribution of particles that is homogeneous in space (variable $x \in \mathbb{T}^3$) and uniform in orientation (variable $p \in \mathbb{S}^2$). We prove its nonlinear stability under the optimal condition of linearized spectral stability, without any addition of spatial diffusion. The mathematical novelty and difficulty compared to previous linear studies comes from the presence of a quasilinear term in $x$ due to nonlinear convection. A key feature of our work, which we hope to be of independent interest, is an analysis of enhanced dissipation and mixing properties of the advection diffusion operator $$\partial_t + (p + u(t,x)) \cdot \nabla_x - \nu \Delta_p $$ on $\mathbb{T}^3 \times \mathbb{S}^2$ for a given appropriately small vector field $u$.