Three-Dimensional Stability of Burgers Vortices: the Low Reynolds Number Case

In this paper we establish rigorously that the family of Burgers vortices of the three-dimensional Navier-Stokes equation is stable for small Reynolds numbers. More precisely, we prove that any solution whose initial condition is a small perturbation of a Burgers vortex will converge toward another Burgers vortex as time goes to infinity, and we give an explicit formula for computing the change in the circulation number (which characterizes the limiting vortex completely.) We also give a rigorous proof of the existence and stability of non-axisymmetric Burgers vortices provided the Reynolds number is sufficiently small, depending on the asymmetry parameter.