Linear Growth and Nonlinear Stability of Two-Dimensional MHD Couette Flow with Vertical Dissipation

Abstract: We study the two-dimensional incompressible magnetohydrodynamic system near the Couette equilibrium $$\bigl((y,0)^{\rm T},(β,0)^{\rm T}\bigr)$$ on $\mathbb T\times\mathbb R$, in the anisotropic regime where both viscosity and magnetic diffusivity act only in the vertical direction. For the inviscid linearized problem with $|β|&gt;1/2$, we prove sharp linear-in-time growth of the vorticity and current density at the level of the time rate. In contrast, the horizontal components of the velocity and magnetic perturbations remain uniformly bounded, while the vertical components exhibit quantitative inviscid damping at the rate $\langle t\rangle<sup>{-1}$. For the nonlinear problem, we introduce shear-adapted Fourier multipliers that simultaneously capture enhanced dissipation, critical-time effects, and echo-type resonant interactions. Under a suitable horizontal background magnetic field and a quantitative compatibility condition between the magnetic field strength, viscosity, and magnetic diffusivity, we establish global nonlinear stability for divergence-free perturbations satisfying $$\left| \bigl( \mathbf v_{\rm in}-(y,0)^{\rm T}, \mathbf H_{\rm in}-(β,0)^{\rm T} \bigr) \right|_{H^N} \leq \varepsilon_0\min{μ,ν}^{1/2}, N\geq4$$. Moreover, the nonzero horizontal Fourier modes decay in a shear-adapted $H<sup>N$ norm at the enhanced-dissipation rate $e<sup>{-c\min{μ,ν}<sup>{1/3}\,t},$ and the vertical velocity and magnetic components gain an additional inviscid-damping factor $\langle t\rangle<sup>{-1}$.