  We consider the Cauchy problem for the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations
in $\mathbb{R}^3$ for a one-parameter family of explicit scale-invariant
axi-symmetric initial data, which is smooth away from the origin and invariant
under the reflection with respect to the $xy$-plane. Working in the class of
axi-symmetric fields, we calculate numerically scale-invariant solutions of the
Cauchy problem in terms of their profile functions, which are smooth. The
solutions are necessarily unique for small data, but for large data we observe
a breaking of the reflection symmetry of the initial data through a
pitchfork-type bifurcation. By a variation of previous results by Jia &
\v{S}ver\'ak (2013) it is known rigorously that if the behavior seen here
numerically can be proved, optimal non-uniqueness examples for the Cauchy
problem can be established, and two different solutions can exists for the same
initial datum which is divergence-free, smooth away from the origin, compactly
supported, and locally $(-1)$-homogeneous near the origin. In particular,
assuming our (finite-dimensional) numerics represents faithfully the behavior
of the full (infinite-dimensional) system, the problem of uniqueness of the
Leray-Hopf solutions (with non-smooth initial data) has a negative answer and,
in addition, the perturbative arguments such those by Kato (1984) and Koch &
Tataru (2001), or the weak-strong uniqueness results by Leray, Prodi, Serrin,
Ladyzhenskaya and others, already give essentially optimal results. There are
no singularities involved in the numerics, as we work only with smooth profile
functions. It is conceivable that our calculations could be upgraded to a
computer-assisted proof, although this would involve a substantial amount of
additional work and calculations, including a much more detailed analysis of
the asymptotic expansions of the solutions at large distances.
