Hölder continuity of solutions of supercritical dissipative hydrodynamic transport equations

We examine the regularity of weak solutions of quasi-geostrophic (QG) type equations with supercritical (α<1/2) dissipation α(−Δ). This study is motivated by a recent work of Caffarelli and Vasseur, in which they study the global regularity issue for the critical (α=1/2) QG equation [L. Caffarelli, A. Vasseur, Drift diffusion equations with fractional diffusion and the quasi-geostrophic equation, arXiv: math.AP/0608447, 2006]. Their approach successively increases the regularity levels of Leray–Hopf weak solutions: from L2 to L∞, from L∞ to Hölder (Cδ, δ>0), and from Hölder to classical solutions. In the supercritical case, Leray–Hopf weak solutions can still be shown to be L∞, but it does not appear that their approach can be easily extended to establish the Hölder continuity of L∞ solutions. In order for their approach to work, we require the velocity to be in the Hölder space C1−2α. Higher regularity starting from Cδ with δ>1−2α can be established through Besov space techniques and will be presented elsewhere [P. Constantin, J. Wu, Regularity of Hölder continuous solutions of the supercritical quasi-geostrophic equation, Ann. Inst. H. Poincaré Anal. Non Linéaire, in press].