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Use irrotational flow to identify where a velocity potential can describe the velocity field locally. An irrotational flow has $\mathbf{\omega }=\nabla \times \mathbf{u}=0$ throughout the fluid region. For a continuously differentiable velocity field, the Poincaré lemma supplies a velocity potential on sufficiently small neighborhoods. A global single-valued velocity potential requires zero circulation around every closed curve; a simply connected domain is a sufficient domain assumption.

The potential line vortex $\mathbf{u}=K{\mathbf{e}}_{\theta }/r$ is an irrotational flow on the punctured plane, or on an annulus $a<r<b$ with $a>0$, even though its pathlines are circular. Every sufficiently small loop bounding a disk in that fluid has zero circulation, by Stokes theorem. A loop winding once counterclockwise around the excluded origin has circulation $2\pi K$. Thus local irrotational flow and nonzero circulation around a hole are compatible: the enclosing disk passes outside the domain of the velocity field.

An irrotational flow is a kinematic condition on a velocity field, independent of whether a particular model neglects viscosity or assumes incompressible flow. Adding incompressible flow makes the local velocity potential satisfy the Laplace equation. This reduces the number of unknowns and makes potential flow a powerful starting point for flow around bodies and for gravity waves. ^[ref]

Tangential viscous traction produces torque equal to its moment integrated over the solid surface.

Lubrication theory describes viscous flow through a gap whose thickness is much smaller than its streamwise length; pressure is nearly uniform across the gap and controls a locally parabolic velocity profile.

Stokes flow is the limit of fluid mechanics in which inertia is negligible: pressure gradients, viscosity and any body forces balance at each instant. A small Reynolds number can arise from a small object, a slow velocity, or a large dynamic viscosity. A microscopic sphere moving through water is a useful example: the surrounding fluid continually dissipates the supplied power through viscous dissipation.

The picture is a meridional slice of the three-dimensional axisymmetric flow around a sphere, with the sphere held fixed and the distant fluid moving rightward at speed $U$. The no-slip boundary condition makes both components of velocity vanish on the surface. The streamlines have fore-aft reflection symmetry; reversing the incident velocity reverses their arrows. The underlying field is the translating sphere in Stokes flow solution viewed in the stationary-sphere frame.

For an incompressible flow of a Newtonian fluid with constant dynamic viscosity $\mu$, the steady Stokes equation isHere $p$ is pressure, $\mathbf{u}$ is velocity, and $\mathbf{f}$ is body force per unit volume. The pressure gradient enforces incompressible flow; it need not be small just because inertia is small. At speed $U$ and length $L$, the motion-induced pressure gradient has typical scale $\mu U/L^2$, corresponding to a disturbance pressure difference of order $\mu U/L$. See Shreyas Mandre's fluid dynamics notes, sections 9.1.1–9.1.2.

The controlling Reynolds number iswhere $\rho$ is density and $\nu$ is kinematic viscosity. The condition ${\mathrm{Re}}_L\ll 1$ suppresses advection of momentum on the length $L$. Rapid changes require an additional check of the viscous diffusion time: small Reynolds number alone does not eliminate the time derivative in the Unsteady Stokes equation.

Two rewards of this limit are the exact Stokes's law for the drag on a sphere and kinematic reversibility of Stokes flow. The first predicts settling velocities and connects to the Stokes–Einstein relation; the second explains why a microswimmer needs a nonreciprocal stroke, as expressed by the scallop theorem. Despite viscous dissipation, reversing the driving can retrace the motion: an especially striking consequence of Linearity of Stokes flow.

George Gabriel Stokes obtained the sphere drag and its terminal velocity in his 1851 investigation of how viscosity changes physical pendulum motion. He also used the slow fall of small water droplets to discuss clouds. The paper was read on 9 December 1850; 1851 is its publication date. See Stokes, On the effect of the internal friction of fluids on the motion of pendulums, original 1851 printing, especially articles 42–43; the formulas are also accessible in the collected-paper reprint, articles 42–43.

For a fixed domain $\mathcal{D}$, body-force density $f$, and stress tensor $\sigma$, the kinetic energy satisfiesThe last term is the nonnegative rate at which viscosity converts mechanical energy into heat.

For an incompressible Newtonian fluid of constant density and viscosity,

For isotropic incompressible flow of a Newtonian fluid, the stress tensor is the displayed expression, with pressure $p$, dynamic viscosity $\mu$, velocity $\mathbf{u}$, and identity matrix $I$. In Couette flow, its off-diagonal component is the shear stress.

No slip requires fluid velocity to equal solid-boundary velocity.

At a fluid interface, normal and tangential tractions satisfy the imposed stress balance.

A steady film down a wall has a parabolic velocity profile set by gravity, ambient pressure gradient, and surface shear.

Couette flow is viscous shear flow driven by relative tangential motion of parallel boundaries. In the steady no-pressure-gradient case its velocity profile is linear.

Momentum diffuses across a distance $L$ in the characteristic time $L^2/\nu$, where $\nu$ is the kinematic viscosity.

For liquid occupying $a(t)<r<b(t)$, radial symmetry and incompressible flow implyThe kinematic boundary condition at the outer interface giveswhich expresses conservation of the liquid's area.

Uniform irrotational flow of speed $U$ past a circular cylinder of radius $a$, with zero circulation, has velocity potentialOn the cylinder, the tangential speed is $-2U\sin \theta$, so the Bernoulli equation gives

In a two-level system, let the Hamiltonian operator have matrix $H=\mathrm{diag}(0,2)$ in the orthonormal basis $|0⟩,|1⟩$. The normalized real trial quantum states and their Rayleigh quotient areThe excited-state probability amplitude is $\sin \theta$, so its probability is ${\sin }^2\theta$. Thus $E(\theta )\ge 0=E_0$, with equality if and only if the excited-state probability amplitude vanishes: $\theta \in \pi \mathbb{Z}$. The remaining quantum state is $|0⟩$ up to a global phase. At $\theta =\pi /4$ the trial energy is $1$; at $\theta =\pi /2$ it is $2$. These are upper bounds on the ground-state energy, even though neither is a minimizing trial.

The real trial family contains the ground state, so it attains the exact minimum despite not covering every complex quantum state. More generally, a family covering all normalized vectors in a two-dimensional Hilbert space gives the exact lowest eigenvalue of any Hermitian matrix by minimizing its Rayleigh quotient. For a complex trial $c_0|0⟩+c_1|1⟩$ with $|c_0{|}^2+|c_1{|}^2=1$, the same calculation gives $E=2|c_1{|}^2$: a relative quantum phase cannot change this diagonal Hamiltonian energy. This finite example is the weighted mean proof of the variational method with just two energy eigenstates.

For a normalized dilation ${\psi }_{\lambda }(x)={\lambda }^{d/2}\psi (\lambda x)$ and a homogeneous potential of degree $-n$, the energy is ${\lambda }^{2}T+{\lambda }^{n}V$. Stationarity at an eigenstate gives $2T+nV=0$.

If $V_1\ge V_2$ pointwise for Hamiltonians with the same kinetic term, using the ground state of $H_1$ as a trial state for $H_2$ gives $E_1\ge E_2$.

For the trial state $e^{-\alpha x^2/2}$, the dimensionless Rayleigh quotient isIts unique minimizer isand at the minimum $\epsilon ({\alpha }_{\ast })=2+2{\alpha }_{\ast }/3-1/{\alpha }_{\ast }$.

Forthe nodeless wavefunction $e^{-x^4/4}$ is an exact eigenstate with energy ${\hslash }^2/m$, and hence is the ground state.

For a regular one-dimensional confining potential, the bound-state eigenfunctions can be ordered by their number of nodes. The unique nodeless normalizable eigenfunction is the ground state.