Turing Universality of the Incompressible Euler Equations and a Conjecture of Moore

In this article, we construct a compact Riemannian manifold of high dimension on which the time-dependent Euler equations are Turing complete. More precisely, the halting of any Turing machine with a given input is equivalent to a certain global solution of the Euler equations entering a certain open set in the space of divergence-free vector fields. In particular, this implies the undecidability of whether a solution to the Euler equations with an initial datum will reach a certain open set or not in the space of divergence-free fields. This result goes one step further in Tao’s programme to study the blow-up problem for the Euler and Navier–Stokes equations using fluid computers. As a remarkable spin-off, our method of proof allows us to give a counterexample to a conjecture of Moore dating back to 1998 on the non-existence of analytic maps on compact manifolds that are Turing complete.

On the convexity condition for the Semi-Geostrophic system

We show that conservative distributional solutions to the Semi-Geostrophic systems in a rigid domain are in some well-defined sense critical points of a time-shifted energy functional involving measure-preserving rearrangements of the absolute density and momentum, which arise as one-parameter flow maps of continuously differentiable, compactly supported divergence free vector fields. We also show directly, with no recourse to Monge- Kantorovich theory, that the convexity requirement on the modified pressure potentials arises naturally if these critical points are local minimizers of said energy functional for any admis- sible vector field. The obligatory connection with the Monge-Kantorovich theory is addressed briefly.

On the structure of divergence-free measures on ℝ3

We consider the structure of divergence-free vector measures on the plane. We show that such measures can be decomposed into measures induced by closed simple curves. More generally, we show that if the divergence of a planar vector-valued measure is a signed measure, then the vector-valued measure can be decomposed into measures induced by simple curves (not necessarily closed). As an application we generalize certain rigidity properties of divergence-free vector fields to vector-valued measures. Namely, we show that if a locally finite vector-valued measure has zero divergence, vanishes in the lower half-space and the normal component of the unit tangent vector of the measure is bounded from below (in the upper half-plane), then the measure is identically zero.

Modelling white matter in gyral blades as a continuous vector field

1AbstractMany brain imaging studies aim to measure structural connectivity with diffusion tractography. However, biases in tractography data, particularly near the boundary between white matter and cortical grey matter can limit the accuracy of such studies. When seeding from the white matter, streamlines tend to travel parallel to the convoluted cortical surface, largely avoiding sulcal fundi and terminating preferentially on gyral crowns. When seeding from the cortical grey matter, streamlines generally run near the cortical surface until reaching deep white matter. These so-called “gyral biases” limit the accuracy and effective resolution of cortical structural connectivity profiles estimated by tractography algorithms, and they do not reflect the expected distributions of axonal densities seen in invasive tracer studies or stains of myelinated fibres. We propose an algorithm that concurrently models fibre density and orientation using a divergence-free vector field within gyral blades to encourage an anatomically-justified streamline density distribution along the cortical white/grey-matter boundary while maintaining alignment with the diffusion MRI estimated fibre orientations. Using in vivo data from the Human Connectome Project, we show that this algorithm reduces tractography biases. We compare the structural connectomes to functional connectomes from resting-state fMRI, showing that our model improves cross-modal agreement. Finally, we find that after parcellation the changes in the structural connectome are very minor with slightly improved interhemispheric connections (i.e, more homotopic connectivity) and slightly worse intrahemispheric connections when compared to tracers.

Rigidity and trace properties of divergence-measure vector fields

We consider a φ-rigidity property for divergence-free vector fields in the Euclidean n-space, where {\varphi(t)} is a non-negative convex function vanishing only at {t=0}. We show that this property is always satisfied in dimension {n=2}, while in higher dimension it requires some further restriction on φ. In particular, we exhibit counterexamples to quadratic rigidity (i.e. when {\varphi(t)=ct^{2}}) in dimension {n\geq 4}. The validity of the quadratic rigidity, which we prove in dimension {n=2}, implies the existence of the trace of a divergence-measure vector field ξ on an {\mathcal{H}^{1}}-rectifiable set S, as soon as its weak normal trace {[\xi\cdot\nu_{S}]} is maximal on S. As an application, we deduce that the graph of an extremal solution to the prescribed mean curvature equation in a weakly-regular domain becomes vertical near the boundary in a pointwise sense.