Steady Euler flows and Beltrami fields in high dimensions

Abstract: Using open books, we prove the existence of a non-vanishing steady solution to the Euler equations for some metric in every homotopy class of non-vanishing vector fields of any odd dimensional manifold. As a corollary, any such field can be realized in an invariant submanifold of a contact Reeb field on a sphere of high dimension. The constructed solutions are geodesible and hence of Beltrami type, and can be modified to obtain chaotic fluids. We characterize Beltrami fields in odd dimensions and show that there always exist volume-preserving Beltrami fields which are neither geodesible nor Euler flows for any metric. This contrasts with the three dimensional case, where every volume-preserving Beltrami field is a steady Euler flow for some metric. Finally, we construct a non-vanishing Beltrami field (which is not necessarily volume-preserving) without periodic orbits in every manifold of odd dimension greater than three.