A Helmholtz-type decomposition for the space of symmetric matrices

Abstract: In this paper, we introduce a Helmholtz-type decomposition for the space of square integrable, symmetric-matrix-valued functions analogous to the standard Helmholtz decomposition for vector fields. This decomposition provides a better understanding of the strain constraint space, which is important to the Navier--Stokes regularity problem. In particular, we give a full characterization the orthogonal complement of the strain constraint space and investigate the geometry of the eigenvalue distribution of matrices in the strain constraint space.