ON THE INCOMPRESSIBLE LIMIT OF THE COMPRESSIBLE NAVIER-STOKES EQUATIONS

Many interesting problems in classical physics involve the behavior of solutions of nonlinear hyperbolic systems as certain parameter and coefficients becomes infinite. Quite often, the limiting solution (when it exits) satisfies a completely different nonlinear partial differential equation. The incompressible limit of the compressible Navier-Stokes equations is one physical problem involving dissipation when such a singular limiting process is interesting. In this article we study the time-discretized compressible Navier-Stokes equation and consider the incompressible limit as the Mach number tends to zero. For gamma-law gas, 1 < gamma less than or equal to 2, D less than or equal to 4, we show that the solutions (rho(epsilon), mu(epsilon)/epsilon) of the compressible Navier-Stokes system converge to the solution (1, (v) over bar) of the incompressible Navier-Stokes system. Furthermore we also prove that the limit also satisfies the Leray energy inequality.