Feedback Stabilization of a Two-Fluid Surface Tension System Modeling the Motion of a Soap Bubble at Low Reynolds Number: The Two-Dimensional Case

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to design a feedback operator for stabilizing in infinite time horizon a system modeling the interactions between a viscous incompressible fluid and the deformation of a soap bubble. The latter is represented by an interface separating a bounded domain of \(\mathbb {R}^2\) into two connected parts filled with viscous incompressible fluids. The interface is a smooth perturbation of the 1-sphere, and the surrounding fluids satisfy the incompressible Stokes equations in time-dependent domains. The mean curvature of the surface defines a surface tension force which induces a jump of the normal trace of the Cauchy stress tensor. The response of the fluids is a velocity trace on the interface, governing the time evolution of the latter, via the equality of velocities. The data are assumed to be sufficiently small, in particular the initial perturbation, that is the initial shape of the soap bubble is close enough to a circle. The control function is a surface tension type force on the interface. We design it as the sum of two feedback operators: one is explicit, the second one is finite-dimensional. They enable us to define a control operator that stabilizes locally the soap bubble to a circle with an arbitrary exponential decay rate, up to translations, and up to non-contact with the outer boundary.