The relationship between Koopman mode decomposition, resolvent mode decomposition, and exact invariant solutions of the Navier-Stokes equations is clarified. The correspondence rests upon the invariance of the system operators under symmetry operations such as spatial translation. The usual interpretation of the Koopman operator is generalized to permit combinations of such operations, in addition to translation in time. This invariance is related to the spectrum of a spatiotemporal Koopman operator, which has a traveling-wave interpretation. The relationship leads to a generalization of dynamic mode decomposition, in which symmetry operations are applied to restrict the dynamic modes to span a subspace subject to those symmetries. The resolvent is interpreted as the mapping between the Koopman modes of the Reynolds stress divergence and the velocity field. It is shown that the singular vectors of the resolvent (the resolvent modes) are the optimal basis in which to express the velocity field Koopman modes where the latter are not a priori known.

• Received 29 March 2016

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevFluids.1.032402