This version is reviewed following the remarks and suggestions of anonymous referees. The main modifications concern Chapters 5, 6 and 7, where the fluctuation theory is now presented in more canonical variables. An appendix has been added to collect local well-posedness results
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 stochastic collisions. The results are valid away from thermal equilibrium, but only for short times. Our strategy is based on uniform a priori bounds on the cumulant generating function, characterizing the fine structure of the small correlations.
We study a hard sphere gas at equilibrium, and prove that in the low density limit, the fluctuations converge to a Gaussian process governed by the fluctuating Boltzmann equation. This result holds for arbitrarily long times. The method of proof builds upon the weak convergence method introduced in the companion paper [8] which is improved by considering clusters of pseudo-trajectories as in [7].
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.
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.
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.
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…
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…
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…
We develop a rigorous theory of hard-sphere dynamics in the kinetic regime, away from thermal equilibrium. In the low density limit, the empirical density obeys a law of large numbers and the dynamics is governed by the Boltzmann equation. Deviations from this behaviour are described by dynamical correlations, which can be fully characterized for short times. This provides both a fluctuating Boltzmann equation and large deviation asymptotics.
We investigate the construction of chaotic probability measures on the Boltzmann's sphere, which is the state space of the stochastic process of a many-particle system undergoing a dynamics preserving energy and momentum. Firstly, based on a version of the local Central Limit Theorem (or Berry-Esseen theorem), we construct a sequence of probabilities that is Kac chaotic and we prove a quantitative rate of convergence. Then, we investigate a stronger notion of chaos, namely entropic chaos introduced in \cite{CCLLV}, and we prove, with quantitative rate, that this same sequence is also entropica…
It has been known since Lanford [19] that the dynamics of a hard sphere gas is described in the low density limit by the Boltzmann equation, at least for short times. The classical strategy of proof fails for longer times, even close to equilibrium. In this paper, we introduce a duality method coupled with a pruning argument to prove that the covariance of the fluctuations around equilibrium is governed by the linearized Boltzmann equation globally in time (including in diffusive regimes). This method is much more robust and simple than the one devised in [4] which was specific to the 2D case.
In this paper, we provide the first rigorous derivation of hydrodynamic equations from the Boltzmann equation for inelastic hard spheres with small inelasticity. The hydrodynamic system that we obtain is an incompressible Navier-Stokes-Fourier system with self-consistent forcing terms and is thus the first hydrodynamic system that properly describes rapid granular flows. To do that, we write our Boltzmann equation in nondimensional form introducing the dimensionless Knudsen number which is intended to tend to 0. The difficulties are then manyfold, the first one coming from the fact that the or…
In [7], a cluster expansion method has been developed to study the fluctuations of the hard sphere dynamics around the Boltzmann equation. This method provides a precise control on the exponential moments of the empirical measure, from which the fluctuating Boltzmann equation and large deviation estimates have been deduced. The cluster expansion in [7] was implemented at the level of the BBGKY hierarchy, which is a standard tool to investigate the deterministic dynamics [11]. In this paper, we introduce an alternative approach, in which the cluster expansion is applied directly on real traject…
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.
Derivation of the Boltzmann equation from hard-sphere dynamics (after Y. Deng, Z. Hani, and X. Ma)
I.H.E.S., Université Paris-Saclay, CNRS Laboratoire Alexandre Grothendieck（高等科学研究所，巴黎萨克雷大学，法国国家科学研究中心亚历山大·格罗滕迪克实验室）；Université Paris Cité, Sorbonne Université CNRS, IMJ-PRG（巴黎西岱大学，索邦大学法国国家科学研究中心，IMJ-PRG）；Sapienza Università di Roma Dipartimento di Matematica G. Castelnuovo（罗马智慧大学，G.卡斯特鲁诺沃数学系）
本文基于 Deng、Hani 和 Ma 的工作，推导了从硬球动力学到玻尔兹曼方程的收敛性结果，并解释了其证明中的关键要素。
We review various contributions on the fundamental work of Lanford deriving the Boltzmann equation from hard-sphere dynamics in the low density limit. We focus especially on the assumptions made on the initial data and on how they encode irreversibility. The impossibility to reverse time in the Boltzmann equation (expressed for instance by Boltzmann's H-theorem) is related to the lack of convergence of higher order marginals on some singular sets. Explicit counterexamples single out the microscopic sets where the initial data should converge in order to produce the Boltzmann dynamics.
We present a quantitative analysis of the Boltzmann-Grad (low-density) limit of a hard sphere system. We introduce and study a set of functions (correlation errors) measuring the deviations in time from the statistical independence of particles (propagation of chaos). In the context of the BBGKY hierarchy, a correlation error of order $k$ measures the event where $k$ particles are connected by a chain of interactions preventing the factorization. We show that, provided $k < \varepsilon^{-α}$, such an error flows to zero with the average density $\varepsilon$, for short times, as $\varepsilon^{…
We provide a rigorous derivation of the Boltzmann equation as the mesoscopic limit of systems of hard spheres, or Newtonian particles interacting via a short-range potential, as the number of particles $N$ goes to infinity and the characteristic length of interaction $\e$ simultaneously goes to $0,$ in the Boltzmann-Grad scaling $N \e^{d-1} \equiv 1.$ The time of validity of the convergence is a fraction of the average time of first collision, due to a limitation of the time on which one can prove uniform estimates for the BBGKY and Boltzmann hierarchies. Our proof relies on the fundamental id…
We study the uniqueness and regularity of the steady states of the diffusively driven Boltzmann equation in the physically relevant case where the restitution coefficient depends on the impact velocity including, in particular, the case of viscoelastic hard-spheres. We adopt a strategy which is novel in several aspects, in particular, the study of regularity does not requires a priori knowledge of the time-dependent problem. Furthermore, the uniqueness result is obtained in the small thermalization regime by studying the so-called quasi-elastic limit for the problem. An important new aspect li…
We consider a gas of $N$ identical hard spheres in the whole space, and we enforce the Boltzmann-Grad scaling. We may suppose that the particles are essentially independent of each other at some initial time; even so, correlations will be created by the dynamics. We will prove a structure theorem for the correlations which develop at positive time. Our result generalizes a previous result which states that there are phase points where the three-particle marginal density factorizes into two-particle and one-particle parts, while further factorization is impossible. The result depends on uniform…
We derive the linear acoustic and Stokes-Fourier equations as the limiting dynamics of a system of N hard spheres of diameter $ε$ in two space dimensions, when N $\rightarrow$ $\infty$, $ε$ $\rightarrow$ 0, N $ε$ = $α$ $\rightarrow$ $\infty$, using the linearized Boltzmann equation as an intermediate step. Our proof is based on Lanford's strategy [18], and on the pruning procedure developed in [5] to improve the convergence time to all kinetic times with a quantitative control which allows us to reach also hydrodynamic time scales. The main novelty here is that uniform L 2 a pri-ori estimates …
We study the Boltzmann equation for a mixture of two gases in one space dimension with initial condition of one gas near vacuum and the other near a Maxwellian equilibrium state. A qualitative-quantitative mathematical analysis is developed to study this mass diffusion problem based on the Green's function of the Boltzmann equation for the single species hard sphere collision model as developed in work of Liu and Yu. The cross species resonance of the mass diffusion and the diffusion-sound wave is investigated. An exponentially sharp global solution is obtained.
We use the dispersive properties of the linear Schrödinger equation to prove local well-posedness results for the Boltzmann equation and the related Boltzmann hierarchy, set in the spatial domain $\mathbb{R}^d$ for $d\geq 2$. The proofs are based on the use of the (inverse) Wigner transform along with the spacetime Fourier transform. The norms for the initial data $f_0$ are weighted versions of the Sobolev spaces $L^2_v H^α_x$ with $α\in \left( \frac{d-1}{2},\infty\right)$. Our main results are local well-posedness for the Boltzmann equation for cutoff Maxwell molecules and hard spheres, as we…
We consider the rate of convergence of solutions of spatially inhomogenous Boltzmann equations, with hard sphere potentials, to some equilibriums, called Maxwellians. Maxwellians are spatially homogenous static Maxwell velocity distributions with different temperatures and mean velocities. We study solutions in weighted space $L^{1}(\mathbb{R}^{3}\times \mathbb{T}^3)$. We prove a conjecture of C. Villani: assume the solution is sufficiently localized and sufficiently smooth, then the solution, in $L^{1}$-space, converges to a Maxwellian, exponentially fast in time.
A linear Boltzmann equation is derived in the Boltzmann-Grad scaling for the deterministic dynamics of many interacting particles with random initial data. We study a Rayleigh gas where a tagged particle is undergoing hard-sphere collisions with background particles, which do not interact among each other. In the Boltzmann-Grad scaling, we derive the validity of a linear Boltzmann equation for arbitrary long times under moderate assumptions on higher moments of the initial distributions of the tagged particle and the possibly non-equilibrium distribution of the background. The convergence of t…
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…
Higher regularity estimate has been a challenging question for the Boltzmann equation in bounded domains. Indeed, it is well-known to have "the non-existence of a second order derivative at the boundary" in [15] even for symmetric convex domains such as a disk or sphere. In this paper we answer this question in the affirmative by constructing the $C^{1,β}$ solutions away from the grazing boundary, for any $β<1$, to the stationary Boltzmann equation with the non-isothermal diffuse boundary condition in strictly convex domains, as long as a smooth wall temperature has small fluctuation pointwise…
We consider a classical system of point particles interacting by means of a short range potential. We prove that, in the low--density (Boltzmann--Grad) limit, the system behaves, for short times, as predicted by the associated Boltzmann equation. This is a revisitation and an extension of the thesis of King (unpublished), appeared after the well known result of Lanford for hard spheres, and of a recent paper by Gallagher et al (arXiv: 1208.5753v1). Our analysis applies to any stable and smooth potential. In the case of repulsive potentials (with no attractive parts), we estimate explicitly the…
We study the acoustic limit from the Boltzmann equation in the framework of classical solutions. For a solution $F_\varepsilon=μ+\varepsilon \sqrtμf_\varepsilon$ to the rescaled Boltzmann equation in the acoustic time scaling \partial_t F_\varepsilon +\vgrad F_\varepsilon =\frac{1}{\varepsilon} \Q(F_\varepsilon,F_\varepsilon), inside a periodic box $\mathbb{T}^3$, we establish the global-in-time uniform energy estimates of $f_\varepsilon$ in $\varepsilon$ and prove that $f_\varepsilon$ converges strongly to $f$ whose dynamics is governed by the acoustic system. The collision kernel $\Q$ includ…
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 consider the spatially homogeneous Boltzmann equation for {\em inelastic hard spheres}, in the framework of so-called {\em constant normal restitution coefficients} $α\in [0,1]$. In the physical regime of a small inelasticity (that is $α\in [α_*,1)$ for some constructive $α_*>0$) we prove uniqueness of the self-similar profile for given values of the restitution coefficient $α\in [α_*,1)$, the mass and the momentum; therefore we deduce the uniqueness of the self-similar solution (up to a time translation). Moreover, if the initial datum lies in $L^1_3$, and under some smallness condition on…
We consider the spatially inhomogeneous Boltzmann equation for inelastic hard-spheres, with constant restitution coefficient $α\in(0,1)$, under the thermalization induced by a host medium with a fixed Maxwellian distribution and any fixed $e\in(0,1]$. When the restitution coefficient $α$ is close to 1 we prove existence and uniqueness of global solutions considering the close-to-equilibrium regime. We also study the long-time behaviour of these solutions and prove a convergence to equilibrium with an exponential rate.
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 investigate the properties of the collision operator associated to the linear Boltzmann equation for dissipative hard-spheres arising in granular gas dynamics. We establish that, as in the case of non-dissipative interactions, the gain collision operator is an integral operator whose kernel is made explicit. One deduces from this result a complete picture of the spectrum of the collision operator in an Hilbert space setting, generalizing results from T. Carleman to granular gases. In the same way, we obtain from this integral representation of the gain operator that the semigroup in $L^1(\R…
We consider the linear dissipative Boltzmann equation describing inelastic interactions of particles with a fixed background. For the simplified model of Maxwell molecules first, we give a complete spectral analysis, and deduce from it the optimal rate of exponential convergence to equilibrium. Moreover we show the convergence to the heat equation in the diffusive limit and compute explicitely the diffusivity. Then for the physical model of hard spheres we use a suitable entropy functional for which we prove explicit inequality between the relative entropy and the production of entropy to get …
This paper is devoted to the study of mean-field limit for systems of indistinguables particles undergoing collision processes. As formulated by Kac \cite{Kac1956} this limit is based on the {\em chaos propagation}, and we (1) prove and quantify this property for Boltzmann collision processes with unbounded collision rates (hard spheres or long-range interactions), (2) prove and quantify this property \emph{uniformly in time}. This yields the first chaos propagation result for the spatially homogeneous Boltzmann equation for true (without cut-off) Maxwell molecules whose "Master equation" shar…
We study the high-energy asymptotics of the steady velocity distributions for model systems of granular media in various regimes. The main results obtained are integral estimates of solutions of the hard-sphere Boltzmann equations, which imply that the velocity distribution functions $f(v)$ behave in a certain sense as $C\exp(-r|v|^s)$ for $|v|$ large. The values of $s$, which we call {\em the orders of tails}, range from $s=1$ to $s=2$, depending on the model of external forcing. The method we use is based on the moment inequalities and careful estimating of constants in the integral form of …
We investigate the regularity issue for the diffuse reflection boundary problem to the stationary linearized Boltzmann equation for hard sphere potential, cutoff hard potential, or cutoff Maxwellian molecular gases in a strictly convex bounded domain. We obtain pointwise estimates for first derivatives of the solution provided the boundary temperature is bounded differentiable and the solution is bounded. This result can be understood as a stationary version of the velocity averaging lemma and mixture lemma.
We develop the regularity theory of the spatially homogeneous Boltzmann equation with cut-off and hard potentials (for instance, hard spheres), by (i) revisiting the Lp-theory to obtain constructive bounds, (ii) establishing propagation of smoothness and singularities, (iii) obtaining estimates about the decay of the sin- gularities of the initial datum. Our proofs are based on a detailed study of the "regularity of the gain operator". An application to the long-time behavior is presented.
We solve the Cauchy problem associated to the space homogeneous Boltzmann equation with an angle-potential singular concentration modeling the collision kernel, proposed in 2013 by Bobylev and Potapenko. The potential under consideration ranges from Coulomb to hard spheres cases. However, the motivation of such a collision kernel is to treat the case of Coulomb potentials, on which this particular form of collision operator is well defined. We also show that the scaled angle-potential singular concentration in a grazing collisions limit makes the Boltzmann operator converge in the sense of dis…
A linear Boltzmann equation with nonautonomous collision operator is rigorously derived in the Boltzmann-Grad limit for the deterministic dynamics of a Rayleigh gas where a tagged particle is undergoing hard-sphere collisions with heterogeneously distributed background particles, which do not interact among each other. The validity of the linear Boltzmann equation holds for arbitrary long times under moderate assumptions on spatial continuity and higher moments of the initial distributions of the tagged particle and the heterogeneous, non-equilibrium distribution of the background. The empiric…
