A priori estimation of memory effects in reduced-order models of nonlinear systems using the Mori-Zwanzig formalism

Reduced models of nonlinear dynamical systems require closure, or the modelling of the unresolved modes. The Mori-Zwanzig procedure can be used to derive formally closed evolution equations for the resolved physics. In these equations, the unclosed terms are recast as a memory integral involving the time history of the resolved variables. While this procedure does not reduce the complexity of the original system, these equations can serve as a mathematically consistent basis to develop closures based on memory approximations. In this scenario, knowledge of the memory kernel is paramount in assessing the validity of a memory approximation. Unravelling the memory kernel requires solving the orthogonal dynamics, which is a high-dimensional partial differential equation that is intractable, in general. A method to estimate the memory kernel a priori, using full-order solution snapshots, is proposed. The key idea is to solve a pseudo orthogonal dynamics equation, which has a convenient Liouville form, instead. This ersatz arises from the assumption that the semi-group of the orthogonal dynamics is a composition operator for one observable. The method is exact for linear systems. Numerical results on the Burgers and Kuramoto-Sivashinsky equations demonstrate that the proposed technique can provide valuable information about the memory kernel.