Can every physical system simulate any Turing machine? This is a classical problem which is intimately connected with the undecidability of certain physical phenomena. Concerning fluid flows, Moore asked in [15] if hydrodynamics is capable of perform
ing computations. More recently, Tao launched a programme based on the Turing completeness of the Euler equations to address the blow up problem in the Navier-Stokes equations. In this direction, the undecidability of some physical systems has been studied in recent years, from the quantum gap problem [7] to quantum field theories [11]. To the best of our knowledge, the existence of undecidable particle paths of 3D fluid flows has remained an elusive open problem since Moores works in the early 1990s. In this article we construct a Turing complete stationary Euler flow on a Riemannian $S^3$ and speculate on its implications concerning Taos approach to the blow up problem in the Navier-Stokes equations.
We prove a non-mixing property of the flow of the 3D Euler equation which has a local nature: in any neighbourhood of a typical steady solution there is a generic set of initial conditions, such that the corresponding Euler flows will never enter a v
icinity of the original steady one. More precisely, we establish that there exist stationary solutions $u_0$ of the Euler equation on $mathbb S^3$ and divergence-free vector fields $v_0$ arbitrarily close to $u_0$, whose (non-steady) evolution by the Euler flow cannot converge in the $C^k$ Holder norm ($k>10$ non-integer) to any stationary state in a small (but fixed a priori) $C^k$-neighbourhood of $u_0$. The set of such initial conditions $v_0$ is open and dense in the vicinity of $u_0$. A similar (but weaker) statement also holds for the Euler flow on $mathbb T^3$. Two essential ingredients in the proof of this result are a geometric description of all steady states near certain nondegenerate stationary solutions, and a KAM-type argument to generate knotted invariant tori from elliptic orbits.
The dynamics of an inviscid and incompressible fluid flow on a Riemannian manifold is governed by the Euler equations. Recently, Tao [35,36] launched a programme to address the global existence problem for the Euler and Navier Stokes equations based
on the concept of universality. In this article we prove that the Euler equations exhibit universality features. More precisely, we show that any non-autonomous flow on a compact manifold can be extended to a smooth solution of the Euler equations on some Riemannian manifold of possibly higher dimension. The solutions we construct are stationary of Beltrami type, so they exist for all time. Using this result, we establish the Turing completeness of the Euler flows, i.e. that there exist solutions that encode a universal Turing machine and, in particular, these solutions have undecidable trajectories. Our proofs deepen the correspondence between contact topology and hydrodynamics, which is key to establish the universality of the Reeb flows and their Beltrami counterparts. An essential ingredient in the proofs is a novel flexibility theorem for embeddings in Reeb dynamics in terms of an $h$-principle in contact geometry, which unveils the flexible behavior of the steady Euler flows.
An initially knotted light field will stay knotted if it satisfies a set of nonlinear, geometric constraints, i.e. the null conditions, for all space-time. However, the question of when an initially null light field stays null has remained challengin
g to answer. By establishing a mapping between Maxwells equations and transport along the flow of a pressureless Euler fluid, we show that an initially analytic null light field stays null if and only if the flow of the initial Poynting field is shear-free, giving a design rule for the construction of persistently knotted light fields. Furthermore we outline methods for constructing initially knotted null light fields, and initially null, shear-free light fields, and give sufficient conditions for the magnetic (or electric) field lines of a null light field to lie tangent to surfaces. Our results pave the way for the design of persistently knotted light fields and the study of their field line structure.
We construct a new family of null solutions to Maxwells equations in free space whose field lines encode all torus knots and links. The evolution of these null fields, analogous to a compressible flow along the Poynting vector that is both geodesic a
nd shear-free, preserves the topology of the knots and links. Our approach combines the Bateman and spinor formalisms for the construction of null fields with complex polynomials on $mathbb{S}^3$. We examine and illustrate the geometry and evolution of the solutions, making manifest the structure of nested knotted tori filled by the field lines.
