On the compactness of weak solutions to the Navier-Stokes-Korteweg equations for capillary fluids

Abstract: In this paper we consider the Navier-Stokes-Korteweg equations for a viscous compressible fluid with capillarity effects in three space dimensions. We prove compactness of finite energy weak solutions for large initial data. In contrast with previous results regarding this system, vacuum regions are allowed in the definition of weak solutions and no additional damping terms are considered. The compactness is obtained by introducing suitable truncations of the velocity field and the mass density at different scales and use only the a priori bounds obtained by the energy and the BD entropy.