Uniform large deviations and long-time dynamics for the 2D anisotropic Navier-Stokes equations on the torus

We study the two-dimensional stochastic Navier-Stokes equations on the torus with horizontal dissipation and additive noise.

First, we prove a uniform large deviation principle for the solution paths in the energy space $C([0,T];H).$ The proof combines a large deviation principle for a linear Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process, a new Lipschitz estimate for the nonlinear map, and a contraction principle that avoids any exponential tightness condition.

Second, we analyse the long-time dynamics.

By exhibiting a deterministic steady state immune to the horizontal dissipation, we show that exponential mixing cannot hold.

Finally, we investigate the invariant measures of the system.

In the deterministic case, the infinite-dimensional kernel of the horizontal Laplacian contains infinitely many Dirac invariant measures.

Under a suitably degenerate noise, however, the kernel supports no invariant measure at all; moreover, any invariant measure of this stochastic system, should it exist, must be orthogonal to this kernel.

This sharply distinguishes the anisotropic equations on the torus both from the fully dissipative Navier-Stokes equations and from their counterparts on domains with no-slip boundaries.