Asymptotic decay and non-rupture of viscous sheets

Abstract

For a nonlinear system of coupled PDEs, that describes evolution of a viscous thin liquid sheet and takes account of surface tension at the free surface, we show exponential (H^1,,L^2) asymptotic decay to the flat profile of its solutions considered with general initial data. Additionally, by transforming the system to Lagrangian coordinates we show that the minimal thickness of the sheet stays positive for all times. This result proves the conjecture formally accepted in the physical literature (cf. Eggers and Fontelos in Singularities: formation, structure, and propagation. Cambridge Texts in Applied Mathematics, Cambridge, 2015), that a viscous sheet cannot rupture in finite time in the absence of external forcing. Moreover, in the absence of surface tension we find a special class of initial data for which the Lagrangian solution exhibits L^2-exponential decay to the flat profile.