Ergodic theory for energetically open compressible fluid flows

Abstract

The ergodic hypothesis is examined for energetically open fluid systems represented by the barotropic Navier–Stokes equations with general inflow/outflow boundary conditions. We show that any globally bounded trajectory generates a stationary statistical solution, which is interpreted as a stochastic process with continuous trajectories supported by the family of weak solutions of the problem. The abstract Birkhoff–Khinchin theorem is applied to obtain convergence (in expectation and a.s.) of ergodic averages for any bounded Borel measurable function of state variables associated to any stationary solution. Finally, we show that validity of the ergodic hypothesis is determined by the behavior of entire solutions (i.e. a solution defined for any t∈R). In particular, the ergodic averages converge for any trajectory provided its ω-limit set in the trajectory space supports a unique (in law) stationary solution.