Stability and Sharp Decay Estimates for 3D MHD Equations with Only Vertical Dissipation Near a Background Magnetic Field

This paper is concerned with the stability and large-time behavior of 3D incompressible MHD equations with only vertical dissipation near a background magnetic field. By making full use of the dissipation generated by the background magnetic field, we first establish the global stability of the solutions in H^3-norm. Then, the optimal decay rates of the solutions are obtained, which are consistent with the 2D classical heat equation. Moreover, some enhanced decay rates of (u_1,b_1) are also achieved. In other words, the decay estimates of the second or third component of velocity/magnetic field coincide with those of 2D heat kernel, while the first component behaves like the 3D heat kernel. This is mainly due to the divergence-free condition and the anisotropic structure. The results obtained improve the previous ones due to Lin-Wu-Zhu [24,25].