Stability threshold of Couette flow for Boussinesq equations in $\mathbb{R}^2$

Abstract

This paper establishes the asymptotic stability threshold for the Couette flow $(y,0)$ under the 2D Boussinesq system in $\mathbb{R}^2$. It was proved that for initial perturbations in Sobolev spaces with controlled low horizontal frequencies, the stability threshold is at most $\left\{\frac{1}{3}+, \frac{2}{3}+\right\}$, extending the known threshold results from the periodic case $\mathbb{T}_x \times \mathbb{R}_y$ to the whole space. The core innovations are twofold: First, the $\langle D_x^{-1} \rangle$ control on the initial data simultaneously resolves horizontal frequency singularities and optimizes integral indices when applying Young's convolution inequality. Second, we develop a modified multiplier $\mathcal{M}_3$ that effectively absorbs the $|D_x|^{1/3}$ derivative structure induced by the temperature equation while handling nonlinear echo cascades.