Abstract: The Stokes operator is a differential-integral operator induced by the Stokes equations. In this paper, we analyze the Stokes operator from the point of view of the Helmholtz minimum dissipation principle. We show that, through the Hodge orthogonal decomposition, a pair of bounded linear operators, a restriction operator and an extension operator, are induced from the divergence-free constraint. As a consequence, we use it to calculate the eigenvalues of the Stokes operator.

Key words: Stokes operator, induced operators, restriction and extension, variational method, Hodge decomposition, eigenvalue problem