Search arXivSearch

arXiv · 2609.24479

Numerical Realization of an Entropy-Based Selection Principle in the Example of Kelvin-Helmholtz Instability

Abstract

In this paper, we extend numerical schemes based on parameterized Young measures and linear programming to two space dimensions and apply them to the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability governed by the two-dimensional Euler equations of gas dynamics. We construct first-, second-, third-, fifth-, seventh-, and ninth-order Young-measure schemes and compare them with corresponding standard local Lax-Friedrichs (LLF) flux-splitting schemes and LLF schemes equipped with an entropy-based local characteristic decomposition (LLF-ELCD). We examine instantaneous and time-averaged density profiles, cumulative averages across spatial reconstruction orders, regional empirical density distributions, averaged density marginals, and several selection criteria for dissipative weak solutions. The numerical results reveal scheme-dependent flow patterns, particularly in the small-scale structures generated during the roll-up of the shear layers. At every reconstruction order considered, the Young-measure schemes yield the largest time-averaged physical entropy. By contrast, the LLF-ELCD schemes do not systematically yield larger entropy than the standard LLF schemes and therefore do not constitute a consistent maximum-entropy selection mechanism. The averaged density marginals of the Young measures are concentrated on several neighboring density states, and the later cumulative averages are closer for all Young-measure schemes. These results demonstrate the feasibility of the two-dimensional Young-measure formulation and show that the objective function in the linear-programming problem can act as an effective selection mechanism. The observed entropy preference is consistent with the local optimization of the expected physical entropy. It cannot be reproduced by merely incorporating entropy into a conventional numerical construction.

Explore related subjects

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Shaoshuai Chu, Michael Herty. 2026-09-21. Numerical Realization of an Entropy-Based Selection Principle in the Example of Kelvin-Helmholtz Instability. https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.24479

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

How many continuous measurements are needed to learn a vector?

One can recover vectors from $\mathbb{R}^m$ with arbitrary precision, using only $\lceil \log_2(m)\rceil +1$ continuous measurements that are chosen adaptively. This surprising result is explained and discussed, and we present applications to infinite-dimensional approximation problems.

math.NA

IterativeCUR: Large Rank-Adaptive Approximation From a Small Recycled Sketch

The computation of accurate low-rank matrix approximations is central to improving the scalability of various techniques in machine learning, uncertainty quantification, and control. Traditionally, low-rank approximations are constructed using SVD-based approaches such as truncated SVD or Randomized SVD. Although these SVD approaches---especially Randomized SVD---have proven to be very computationally efficient, other low-rank approximation methods can offer even greater performance. One such approach is the CUR decomposition, which forms a low-rank approximation using direct row and column subsets of a matrix. Because CUR uses direct matrix subsets, it is also often better able to preserve native matrix structures like sparsity or non-negativity than SVD-based approaches and can facilitate data interpretation in many contexts. This paper introduces IterativeCUR, which draws on previous work in randomized numerical linear algebra to build a new algorithm that is highly competitive compared to prior work. IterativeCUR is adaptive in the sense that it takes as an input parameter the desired tolerance $ε$ and outputs (with arbitrarily high probability) an approximation of error bounded by $ε$, rather than requiring an a priori guess of the numerical rank. IterativeCUR typically runs significantly faster than both existing CUR algorithms and techniques such as Randomized SVD. Its asymptotic complexity is $\mathcal{O}(mn + (m+n)r^2)$ for an $m\times n$ matrix of output rank $r$. IterativeCUR relies on a single small sketch from the matrix that is successively downdated as the algorithm proceeds. We demonstrate through extensive experiments that IterativeCUR achieves up to $4\times$ speed-up over state-of-the-art pivoting-on-sketch approaches with no loss of accuracy, and up to $40\times$ speed-up over rank-adaptive randomized SVD approaches.

math.NA

Multigrid with Linear Storage Complexity

As the discretization error for the solution of a partial differential equation (PDE) decreases, the precision required to store the corresponding coefficients naturally increases. Storing the solution's finite element coefficients explicitly requires $\mathcal O(n \log n)$ bits of storage, where $n$ is the number of degrees of freedom (DoFs). This paper presents a full multigrid method to compute the solution in a compressed format that reduces the storage complexity of the solution and intermediate vectors to $\mathcal O(n)$ bits. This reduction allows a matrix-free implementation to solve elliptic PDEs with an overall linear space complexity. For problems limited by the memory capacity of current supercomputers, we expect a memory footprint reduction of about an order of magnitude compared to state-of-the-art mixed-precision methods. We demonstrate the applicability of our algorithm by solving two model problems. Depending on the PDE and polynomial degree, but irrespective of the problem size, the solution vector on the finest grid requires between 4 and 12 bits per DoF, and the residual and correction require 3 to 6 bits each. Additional data is stored on the coarse grids with modestly increasing bit widths toward coarser grids.

math.NA