Decay of Weak Solutions to the 2D Dissipative Quasi-Geostrophic Equation

We address the decay of the norm of weak solutions to the 2D dissipative quasi-geostrophic equation. When the initial data θ₀ is in L ² only, we prove that the L ² norm tends to zero but with no uniform rate, that is, there are solutions with arbitrarily slow decay. For θ₀ in L ^p ∩ L ², with 1 ≤ p < 2, we are able to obtain a uniform decay rate in L ². We also prove that when the norm of θ₀ is small enough, the L ^q norms, for , have uniform decay rates. This result allows us to prove decay for the L ^q norms, for , when θ₀ is in . The second author was partially supported by NSF grant DMS-0600692.