Vortex Line Representation for Flows of Ideal and Viscous Fluids

The Euler hydrodynamics describing the vortex flows of ideal fluids is shown to coincide with the equations of motion obtained for a charged compressible fluid moving under the effect of a self-consistent electromagnetic field. For the Euler equations, the passage to the Lagrange description in the new hydrodynamics is equivalent to a combined Lagrange-Euler description, i.e., to the vortex line representation [5]. Owing to the compressibility of the new hydrodynamics, the collapse of a vortex flow of an ideal fluid can be interpreted as a result of the breaking of vortex lines. The Navier-Stokes equation formulated in terms of the vortex line representation proves to be reduced to a diffusion-type equation for the Cauchy invariant with the diffusion tensor determined by the metric of this representation.