Inviscid Damping Near the Couette Flow in a Channel

We prove asymptotic stability of the Couette flow for the 2D Euler equations in the domain T x [0, 1]. More precisely we prove that if we start with a small and smooth perturbation (in a suitable Gevrey space) of the Couette flow, then the velocity field converges strongly to a nearby shear flow. Our solutions are defined on the compact set Tx[0, 1] ("the channel") and therefore have finite energy. The vorticity perturbation, which is initially assumed to be supported in the interior of the channel, will remain supported in the interior of the channel at all times, will be driven to higher frequencies by the linear flow, and will converge weakly to another shear flow as t -> infinity.