By combining the DiPerna and Lions techniques for the nonrelativistic Boltzmann equation and the Dudyński and Ekiel-Jeżewska device of the causality of the relativistic Boltzmann equation, it is shown that there exists a global mild solution to the Cauchy problem for the relativistic Boltzmann equation with the assumptions of the relativistic scattering cross section including some relativistic hard interactions and the initial data satisfying finite mass, energy and entropy. This is in fact an extension of the result of Dudyński and Ekiel-Jeżewska to the case of the relativistic Boltzmann equation with hard interactions.
By using the DiPerna and Lions techniques for the nonrelativistic Boltzmann equation, it is shown that there exists a global mild solution to the Cauchy problem for the relativistic Boltzmann equation with the assumptions of the relativistic scattering cross section including some relativistic hard interactions and the initial data satifying finite mass, ``inertia'', energy and entropy.
The relativistic Boltzmann equation for a constant differential cross section and with periodic boundary conditions is considered. The speed of light appears as a parameter $c>c_0$ for a properly large and positive $c_0$. A local existence and uniqueness theorem is proved in an interval of time independent of $c>c_0$ and conditions are given such that in the limit $c\to +\infty$ the solutions converge, in a suitable norm, to the solutions of the non-relativistic Boltzmann equation for hard spheres.
A new probalistic approach to general relativistic kinetic theory is proposed. The general relativistic Boltzmann equation is linked to a new Markov process in a completely intrinsic way. This treatment is then used to prove the causal character of the relativistic Boltzmann model.
The generalization of the BGK relaxation model to the special relativity setting is revisited here. We deal with several issues related to this relativistic kinetic model which seem to have been overlooked in the previous physical literature, including the unique determination of associated physical parameters, classical, ultra-relativistic and hydrodynamical limits, maximum entropy principles and the analysis of the linearized operator.
We study the local-in-time hydrodynamic limit of the relativistic Boltzmann equation using a Hilbert expansion. More specifically, we prove the existence of local solutions to the relativistic Boltzmann equation that are nearby the local relativistic Maxwellian constructed from a class of solutions to the relativistic Euler equations that includes a large subclass of near-constant, non-vacuum fluid states. In particular, for small Knudsen number, these solutions to the relativistic Boltzmann equation have dynamics that are effectively captured by corresponding solutions to the relativistic Eul…
We show that deletion of the loss part of the collision term in all physically relevant versions of the Boltzmann equation, including the relativistic case, will in general lead to blowup in finite time of a solution and hence prevent global existence. Our result corrects an error in the proof given in Ref. [12], where the result was announced for the classical hard sphere case; here we give a simpler proof which applies much more generally.
In this paper, we study the relativistic Boltzmann equation in the spatially flat Robertson-Walker spacetime. For a certain class of scattering kernels, global existence of classical solutions is proved. We use the standard method of Illner and Shinbrot for the global existence and apply the splitting technique of Guo and Strain for the regularity of solutions. The main interest of this paper is to study the evolution of matter distribution, rather than the evolution of spacetime. We obtain the asymptotic behaviour of solutions and will understand how the expansion of the universe affects the …
We study the Cauchy Problem for the relativistic Boltzmann equation with near Vacuum initial data. Unique global in time "mild" solutions are obtained uniformly in the speed of light parameter $c \ge 1$. We furthermore prove that solutions to the relativistic Boltzmann equation converge to solutions of the Newtonian Boltzmann equation in the limit as $c\to\infty$ on arbitrary time intervals $[0,T]$, with convergence rate $1/c^{2-ε}$ for any $ε\in(0,2)$. This may be the first proof of unique global in time validity of the Newtonian limit for a Kinetic equation.
In this paper, we prove the propagation of uniform upper bounds for the spatially homogeneous relativistic Boltzmann equation. These $L^\infty$ bounds have been known to be a challenging open problem in relativistic kinetic theory. To accomplish this, we establish two types of estimates for the gain part of the collision operator: first, we prove a potential type estimate and a relativistic hyper-surface integral estimate. We then combine those estimates using the relativistic counter-part of the Carleman representation to derive uniform control of the gain term for the relativistic collision …
In the study of solutions to the relativistic Boltzmann equation, their regularity with respect to the momentum variables has been an outstanding question, even local in time, due to the initially unexpected growth in the post-collisional momentum variables which was discovered in 1991 by Glassey & Strauss \cite{MR1105532}. We establish momentum regularity within energy spaces via a new splitting technique and interplay between the Glassey-Strauss frame and the center of mass frame of the relativistic collision operator. In a periodic box, these new momentum regularity estimates lead to a proo…
In this paper it is shown that unique solutions to the relativistic Boltzmann equation exist for all time and decay with any polynomial rate towards their steady state relativistic Maxwellian provided that the initial data starts out sufficiently close in $L^\infty_\ell$. If the initial data are continuous then so is the corresponding solution. We work in the case of a spatially periodic box. Conditions on the collision kernel are generic in the sense of (Dudy{ń}ski and Ekiel-Je{ż}ewska, Comm. Math. Phys., 1988); this resolves the open question of global existence for the soft potentials.
It is often the case in mathematical analysis that solving an open problem can be facilitated by finding a new set of coordinates which may illumniate the known difficulties. In this article, we illustrate how to derive an assortment coordinates in which to represent the relativistic Boltzmann collision operator. We show the equivalence between some known representations, and others which seem to be new. One of these representations has been used recently to solve several open problems.
We review some results concerning the derivation of the Boltzmann equation starting from the many-body classical Hamiltonian dynamics. In particular, the celebrated paper by O. E. Lanford III and the more recent papers [13, 23] are discussed.
We consider the spatially homogeneous Boltzmann equation for hard potentials without cutoff. We prove that an exponential moment of order $ρ=\min\{2γ/(2-ν),2\}$, with the usual notation, is immediately created. This is stronger than what happens in the case with cutoff. We also show that exponential moments of order $ρ\in (0,2]$ are propagated.
Review of From Newton to Boltzmann: Hard Spheres and Short-range Potentials, by Isabelle Gallagher, Laure Saint-Raymond and Benjamin Texier, European Mathematical Society, Zürich, 2014, xi+135 pp., ISBN 978-3- 03719-129-3.
Despite the progress achieved by kinetic theory, its rigorous theoretical foundations still remain unsolved to date. This concerns in particular the search of possible exact kinetic equations and, specifically, the conjecture proposed by Grad (Grad, 1972) and developed in a seminal work by Lanford (Lanford, 1974) that kinetic equations - such as the Boltzmann equation for a gas of classical hard spheres - might result exact in an appropriate asymptotic limit, usually denoted as Boltzmann-Grad limit. The Lanford conjecture has actually had a profound influence on the scientific community, givin…
For the spatially homogeneous Boltzmann equation with hard po- tentials and Grad's cutoff (e.g. hard spheres), we give quantitative estimates of exponential convergence to equilibrium, and we show that the rate of exponential decay is governed by the spectral gap for the linearized equation, on which we provide a lower bound. Our approach is based on establishing spectral gap-like estimates valid near the equilibrium, and then connecting the latter to the quantitative nonlinear theory. This leads us to an explicit study of the linearized Boltzmann collision operator in functional spaces larger…
Despite the progress achieved by kinetic theory, the search of possible exact kinetic equations remains elusive to date. This concerns, specifically, the issue of the validity of the conjecture proposed by Grad (Grad, 1972) and developed in a seminal work by Lanford (Lanford, 1974) that kinetic equations - such as the Boltzmann equation for a gas of classical hard spheres - might result exact in an appropriate asymptotic limit, usually denoted as Boltzmann-Grad limit. The Lanford conjecture has actually had a profound influence on the scientific community, giving rise to a whole line of origin…
In this paper, we rigorously derive a Boltzmann equation for mixtures from the many body dynamics of two types of hard sphere gases. We prove that the microscopic dynamics of two gases with different masses and diameters is well defined, and introduce the concept of a two parameter BBGKY hierarchy to handle the non-symmetric interaction of these gases. As a corollary of the derivation, we prove Boltzmann's propagation of chaos assumption for the case of a mixtures of gases.
This paper deals with explicit spectral gap estimates for the linearized Boltzmann operator with hard potentials (and hard spheres). We prove that it can be reduced to the Maxwellian case, for which explicit estimates are already known. Such a method is constructive, does not rely on Weyl's Theorem and thus does not require Grad's splitting. The more physical idea of the proof is to use geometrical properties of the whole collision operator. In a second part, we use the fact that the Landau operator can be expressed as the limit of the Boltzmann operator as collisions become grazing in order t…
We study space-time fluctuations of a hard sphere system at thermal equilibrium, and prove that the covariance converges to the solution of a linearized Boltzmann equation in the low density limit, globally in time. This result has been obtained previously in [7], by using uniform bounds on the number of recollisions of dispersing systems of hard spheres (as provided for instance in [9]). We present a self-contained proof with substantial differences, which does not use this geometric result. This can be regarded as the first step of a program aiming to derive the fluctuation theory of the rar…
The present paper proves that all limit points of sequences of renormalized solutions of the Boltzmann equation in the limit of small, asymptotically equivalent Mach and Knudsen numbers are governed by Leray solutions of the Navier-Stokes equations. This convergence result holds for hard cutoff potentials in the sense of H. Grad, and therefore completes earlier results by the same authors [Invent. Math. 155, 81-161(2004)] for Maxwell molecules.
In the paper the possible approaches to the rigorous derivation of the Boltzmann kinetic equation with hard sphere collisions from underlying dynamics are considered. In particular, a formalism for the description of the evolution of infinitely many hard spheres within the framework of marginal observables in the Boltzmann--Grad scaling limit is developed. Also we give consideration to one more approach of the description of the kinetic evolution of hard spheres in terms of a one-particle distribution function governed by the non-Markovian generalization of the Enskog equation and the Boltzman…
This paper provides the first rigorous derivation of a binary-ternary Boltzmann equation describing the kinetic properties of a dense hard-spheres gas, where particles undergo either binary or ternary instantaneous interactions, while preserving momentum and energy. An important challenge we overcome in deriving this equation is related to providing a mathematical framework that allows us to detect both binary and ternary interactions. Furthermore, this paper introduces new algebraic and geometric techniques in order to eventually decouple binary and ternary interactions and understand the way…
We consider the spatially homogeneous Boltzmann equation for inelastic hard spheres, in the framework of so-called constant normal restitution coefficients. We prove the existence of self-similar solutions, and we give pointwise estimates on their tail. We also give general estimates on the tail and the regularity of generic solutions. In particular we prove Haff 's law on the rate of decay of temperature, as well as the algebraic decay of singularities. The proofs are based on the regularity study of a rescaled problem, with the help of the regularity properties of the gain part of the Boltzm…
N.N. Bogolyubov discovered that the Boltzmann-Enskog kinetic equation has microscopic solutions. They have the form of sums of delta-functions and correspond to trajectories of individual hard spheres. But the rigorous sense of the product of the delta-functions in the collision integral was not discussed. Here we give a rigorous sense to these solutions by introduction of a special regularization of the delta-functions. The crucial observation is that the collision integral of the Boltzmann-Enskog equation coincides with that of the first equation of the BBGKY hierarchy for hard spheres if th…
In this paper we present a rigorous derivation of the Boltzmann equation in a compact domain with diffuse reflection boundary conditions. We consider a system of $N$ hard spheres of diameter $ε$ in a box $Λ:= [0, 1] \times (R/Z)^2$. When a particle meets the boundary of the domain, it is instantaneously reinjected into the box with a random direction, and conserving kinetic energy. We prove that the first marginal of the process converges in the scaling $Nε^2 = 1$, $ε\rightarrow 0$ to the solution of the Boltzmann equation, with the same short time restriction of Lanford's classical theorem.
We consider an inverse problem for the Boltzmann equation on a globally hyperbolic Lorentzian spacetime $(M,g)$ with an unknown metric $g$. We consider measurements done in a neighbourhood $V\subset M$ of a timelike path $μ$ that connects a point $x^-$ to a point $x^+$. The measurements are modelled by a source-to-solution map, which maps a source supported in $V$ to the restriction of the solution to the Boltzmann equation to the set $V$. We show that the source-to-solution map uniquely determines the Lorentzian spacetime, up to an isometry, in the set $I^+(x^-)\cap I^-(x^+)\subset M$. The se…
We prove uniqueness of self-similar profiles for the one-dimensional inelastic Boltzmann equation with moderately hard potentials, that is with collision kernel of the form | $\bullet$ | $γ$ for $γ$ > 0 small enough (explicitly quantified). Our result provides the first uniqueness statement for self-similar profiles of inelastic Boltzmann models allowing for strong inelasticity besides the explicitly solvable case of Maxwell interactions (corresponding to $γ$ = 0). Our approach relies on a perturbation argument from the corresponding Maxwell model through a careful study of the associated line…
We develop the Cauchy theory of the spatially homogeneous inelastic Boltzmann equation for hard spheres, for a general form of collision rate which includes in particular variable restitution coefficients depending on the kinetic energy and the relative velocity as well as the sticky particles model. We prove (local in time) non-concentration estimates in Orlicz spaces, from which we deduce weak stability and existence theorem. Strong stability together with uniqueness and instantaneous appearance of exponential moments are proved under additional smoothness assumption on the initial datum, fo…
In this paper we study the future global existence and late-time behaviour of the Einstein-Boltzmann system with Bianchi I symmetry and a positive cosmological constant $Λ>0$. For the Boltzmann equation we consider the scattering kernel of Israel particles which are the relativistic counterpart of Maxwellian particles. Under a smallness assumption on initial data in a suitable norm we show that solutions exist globally in time and isotropize at late times.
We prove explicit coercivity estimates for the linearized Boltzmann and Landau operators, for a general class of interactions including any inverse-power law interactions, and hard spheres. The functional spaces of these coercivity estimates depend on the collision kernel of these operators. They cover the spectral gap estimates for the linearized Boltzmann operator with Maxwell molecules, improve these estimates for hard potentials, and are the first explicit coercivity estimates for soft potentials (including in particular the case of Coulombian interactions). We also prove a regularity prop…
We present a mathematical theory of dynamical fluctuations for the hard sphere gas in the Boltzmann-Grad limit. We prove that: (1) fluctuations of the empirical measure from the solution of the Boltzmann equation, scaled with the square root of the average number of particles, converge to a Gaussian process driven by the fluctuating Boltzmann equation, as predicted in [67]; (2) large deviations are exponentially small in the average number of particles and are characterized, under regularity assumptions, by a large deviation functional as previously obtained in [61] for dynamics with stochasti…
The Boltzmann-Enskog equation for a hard sphere gas is known to have so called microscopic solutions, i.e., solutions of the form of time-evolving empirical measures of a finite number of hard spheres. However, the precise mathematical meaning of these solutions should be discussed, since the formal substitution of empirical measures into the equation is not well-defined. Here we give a rigorous mathematical meaning to the microscopic solutions to the Boltzmann-Enskog equation by means of a suitable series representation.
