Geometric Properties of the 2-D Peskin Problem

Abstract

The 2-D Peskin problem describes a 1-D closed elastic string immersed and moving in a 2-D Stokes flow that is induced by its own elastic force. The geometric shape of the string and its internal stretching configuration evolve in a coupled way, and they combined govern the dynamics of the system. In this paper, we show that certain geometric quantities of the moving string satisfy extremum principles and decay estimates. As a result, we can prove that the 2-D Peskin problem admits a unique global solution when the initial data satisfies a medium-size geometric condition on the string shape, while no assumption on the size of stretching is needed.