Nonuniqueness and Existence of Continuous, Globally Dissipative Euler Flows

Abstract

We show that Hölder continuous incompressible Euler flows that satisfy the local energy inequality (“globally dissipative” solutions) exhibit nonuniqueness and contain examples that strictly dissipate kinetic energy. The collection of such solutions emanating from a fixed initial data may have positive Hausdorff dimension in the energy space even if the local energy equality is imposed, and the set of initial data giving rise to such an infinite family of solutions is $$C^0$$ dense in the space of continuous, divergence free vector fields on the torus $${{\mathbb {T}}}^3$$ . The construction of these solutions involves a new and explicit convex integration approach mirroring Kraichnan’s LDIA theory of turbulent energy cascades that overcomes the limitations of previous schemes, which had been restricted to bounded measurable solutions or to continuous solutions that dissipate total kinetic energy.