Critical local well-posedness for the fully nonlinear Peskin problem

Abstract

We study the problem where a one-dimensional elastic string is immersed in a two-dimensional steady Stokes fluid. This is known as the Stokes immersed boundary problem and also as the Peskin problem. We consider the case with equal viscosities and with a fully non-linear tension law; this model has been called the fully nonlinear Peskin problem. In this case we prove local in time wellposedness for arbitrary initial data in the scaling critical Besov space ${\dot{B}}_{2,1}^{3/2}(T;R^2)$. We additionally prove the optimal higher order smoothing effects for the solution. To prove this result we derive a new formulation of the boundary integral equation that describes the parametrization of the string, and we crucially utilize a new cancelation structure.