We establish the existence, uniqueness and attraction properties of an ergodic invariant measure for the Boussinesq Equations in the presence of a degenerate stochastic forcing acting only in the temperature equation and only at the largest spatial scales. The central challenge is to establish time asymptotic smoothing properties of the Markovian dynamics corresponding to this system. Towards this aim we encounter a Lie bracket structure in the associated vector fields with a complicated dependence on solutions. This leads us to develop a novel Hörmander-type condition for infinite-dimensional systems. Demonstrating the sufficiency of this condition requires new techniques for the spectral analysis of the Malliavin covariance matrix.

We consider fully nonlinear weakly coupled systems of parabolic equations on a bounded reflectionally symmetric domain. Assuming the system is cooperative we prove the asymptotic symmetry of positive bounded solutions. To facilitate an application of the method of moving hyperplanes, we derive Harnack type estimates for linear cooperative parabolic systems.

We consider the Boussinesq approximation for Rayleigh-Bénard convection perturbed by an additive noise and with boundary conditions corresponding to heating from below. In two space dimensions, with sufficient stochastic forcing in the temperature component and large Prandtl number P r > 0, we establish the existence of a unique ergodic invariant measure. In three space dimensions, we prove the existence of a statistically invariant state, and establish unique ergodicity for the infinite Prandtl Boussinesq system. Throughout this work we provide streamlined proofs of unique ergodicity which invoke an asymptotic coupling argument, a delicate usage of the maximum principle, and exponential martingale inequalities. Lastly, we show that the background method of Constantin-Doering [CD96] can be applied in our stochastic setting, and prove bounds on the Nusselt number relative to the unique invariant measure.

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We prove a unified and general criterion for the uniqueness of critical points of a functional in the presence of constraints such as positivity, boundedness, or fixed mass. Our method relies on convexity properties along suitable paths and significantly generalizes well-known uniqueness theorems. Due to the flexibility in the construction of the paths, our approach does not depend on the convexity of the domain and can be used to prove uniqueness in subsets, even if it does not hold globally. The results apply to all critical points and not only to minimizers, thus they provide uniqueness of solutions to the corresponding Euler-Lagrange equations. For functionals emerging from elliptic problems, the assumptions of our abstract theorems follow from maximum principles, decay properties, and novel general inequalities. To illustrate our method we present a unified proof of known results, as well as new theorems for mean-curvature type operators, fractional Laplacians, Hamiltonian systems, Schrödinger equations, and Gross-Pitaevski systems.

We establish the convergence of statistically invariant states for the stochastic Boussinesq Equations in the infinite Prandtl number limit and in particular demonstrate the convergence of the Nusselt number (a measure of heat transport in the fluid). This is a singular parameter limit significant in mantle convection and for gasses under high pressure. The equations are subject to a both temperature gradient on the boundary and internal heating in the bulk driven by a stochastic, white in time, gaussian forcing. Here, the stochastic source terms have a strong physical motivation for example as a model of radiogenic heating.Our approach uses mixing properties of the formal limit system to reduce the convergence of invariant states to an analysis of the finite time asymptotics of solutions and parameter-uniform moment bounds. Here, it is notable that there is a phase space mismatch between the finite Prandtl system and the limit equation, and we implement methods to lift both finite and infinite time convergence results to an extended phase space which includes velocity fields. For the infinite Prandtl stochastic Boussinesq equations, we show that the associated invariant measure is unique and that the dual Markovian dynamics are contractive in an appropriate Kantorovich-Wasserstein metric. We then address the convergence of solutions on finite time intervals, which is still a singular perturbation. In the process we derive wellposed equations which accurately approximate the dynamics up to the initial time when the Prandtl number is large.

We consider the three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) equations in the presence of a spatially degenerate stochastic forcing as a model for magnetostrophic turbulence in the Earth's fluid core. We examine the multi-parameter singular limit of vanishing Rossby number ε and magnetic Reynold's number δ, and establish that: (i) the limiting stochastically driven active scalar equation (with ε = δ = 0) possesses a unique ergodic invariant measure, and (ii) any suitable sequence of statistically invariant states of the full MHD system converge weakly, as ε, δ → 0, to the unique invariant measure of the limit equation. This latter convergence result does not require any conditions on the relative rates at which ε, δ decay.Our analysis of the limit equation relies on a recently developed theory of hypo-ellipticity for infinitedimensional stochastic dynamical systems. We carry out a detailed study of the interactions between the nonlinear and stochastic terms to demonstrate that a Hörmander bracket condition is satisfied, which yields a contraction property for the limit equation in a suitable Wasserstein metric. This contraction property reduces the convergence of invariant states in the multi-parameter limit to the convergence of solutions at finite times. However, in view of the phase space mismatch between the small parameter system and the limit equation, and due to the multi-parameter nature of the problem, further analysis is required to establish the singular limit. In particular, we develop methods to lift the contraction for the limit equation to the extended phase space, including the velocity and magnetic fields. Moreover, for the convergence of solutions at finite times we make use of a probabilistic modification of the Grönwall inequality, relying on a delicate stopping time argument.

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