Disproving the Existence of Global Smooth Solutions to the Three-dimensional Navier-Stokes Equations

Existence of global smooth solutions to the three-dimensional (3D) Navier-Stokes equations is disproved for pressure-driven flows with no-slip boundary conditions. This study is rigorously grounded in Sobolev space analysis. We show that the solution breakdown arises from regularity degeneration instead of velocity blowup. For disturbed laminar plane Poiseuille flow, the instantaneous velocity field is decomposed into a time-averaged flow and a disturbance flow, both characterized by their regularity in Sobolev spaces. When the Reynolds number is larger than the critical Reynolds number, the nonlinear interaction modifies the mean flow profile, and the disturbance amplitude grows exponentially. This amplification leads to a local cancellation between viscous terms of the mean flow and the disturbance flow, resulting in the total viscous term (i.e., the Laplacian term) vanishing locally at the critical point $(\boldsymbol{x}^*, t^*)$. The local vanishing viscous term leads to zero velocity by the elliptic operator estimate, which contradicts the non-vanishing incoming velocity, leading to formation of a singularity. This singularity induces a velocity discontinuity, which causes the $L^\infty$ -norm of the velocity gradient to diverge, violating the definition of a global smooth solution in Sobolev spaces. The analysis is strictly grounded in partial differential equations (PDE) theory, with all key steps validated by Sobolev space properties and a priori estimates.