The Green tensor of the nonstationary Stokes system in the half space

Abstract: We prove the first ever pointwise estimates of the (unrestricted) Green tensor and the associated pressure tensor of the nonstationary Stokes system in the half-space, for every space dimension greater than one. The force field is not necessarily assumed to be solenoidal. The key is to find a suitable Green tensor formula which maximizes the tangential decay, showing in particular the integrability of Green tensor derivatives. With its pointwise estimates, we show the symmetry of the Green tensor, which in turn improves pointwise estimates. We also study how the solutions converge to the initial data, and the (infinitely many) restricted Green tensors acting on solenoidal vector fields. As applications, we give new proofs of existence of mild solutions of the Navier-Stokes equations in $L^q$, pointwise decay, and uniformly local $L^q$ spaces in the half-space.