On the analysis of a coupled kinetic-fluid model with local alignment forces

Abstract: This paper studies global existence, hydrodynamic limit, and large-time behavior of weak solutions to a kinetic flocking model coupled to the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations. The model describes the motion of particles immersed in a Navier-Stokes fluid interacting through local alignment. We first prove the existence of weak solutions using energy and $L^p$ estimates together with the velocity averaging lemma. We also rigorously establish a hydrodynamic limit corresponding to strong noise and local alignment. In this limit, the dynamics can be totally described by a coupled compressible Euler - incompressible Navier-Stokes system. The proof is via relative entropy techniques. Finally, we show a conditional result on the large-time behavior of classical solutions. Specifically, if the mass-density satisfies a uniform in time integrability estimate, then particles align with the fluid velocity exponentially fast without any further assumption on the viscosity of the fluid.