Global weak solutions to the Cauchy problem of compressible Navier–Stokes–Vlasov–Fokker–Planck equations

A fluid–particles system of the compressible Navier‐Stokes equations and Vlasov‐Fokker‐Planck equation (including the case of Vlasov equation) in three‐dimensional space is considered in this paper. The coupling arises from a drag force exerted by the fluid onto the particles. We study a Cauchy problem with large data, and establish the existence of global weak solutions through an approximation scheme, energy estimates, and weak convergence. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Global weak solutions for the initial–boundary-value problems Vlasov–Poisson–Fokker–Planck System

This work is devoted to prove the existence of weak solutions of the kinetic Vlasov–Poisson–Fokker–Planck system in bounded domains for attractive or repulsive forces. Absorbing and reflection-type boundary conditions are considered for the kinetic equation and zero values for the potential on the boundary. The existence of weak solutions is proved for bounded and integrable initial and boundary data with finite energy. The main difficulty of this problem is to obtain an existence theory for the linear equation. This fact is analysed using a variational technique and the theory of elliptic–parabolic equations of second order. The proof of existence for the initial–boundary value problems is carried out following a procedure of regularization and linearization of the problem. © 1998 B. G. Teubner Stuttgart—John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Steady states in plasma physics—the Vlasov–Fokker–Planck equation

In this paper we investigate the non-linear Vlasov–Fokker–Planck (VFP) equation, a both physically and mathematically interesting modification of Vlasov's equation, which describes a plasma in a thermal bath. We prove existence, uniqueness and representation results for steady states of the VFP equation both in the case of a mollified interaction potential and for the VFP–Poisson system. The uniqueness and representation results are of special interest since they distinguish special solutions of the Vlasov equation.     

The Vlasov–Maxwell–Fokker–Planck system in two space dimensions

We consider the Cauchy problem for the Vlasov–Maxwell–Fokker–Planck system in the plane. It is shown that for smooth initial data, as long as the electromagnetic fields remain bounded, then their derivatives do also. Glassey and Strauss have shown this to hold for the relativistic Vlasov–Maxwell system in three dimensions, but the method here is totally different. In the work of Glassey and Strauss, the relativistic nature of the particle transport played an essential role. In this work, the transport is nonrelativistic, and smoothing from the Fokker–Planck operator is exploited. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Vlasov–Poisson–Fokker–Planck equation in an interval with kinetic absorbing boundary conditions

We study the initial–boundary value problem for the Vlasov–Poisson–Fokker–Planck equations in an interval with absorbing boundary conditions. We first prove the existence of weak solutions of the linearized equation in an interval with absorbing boundary conditions. Moreover, the weak solution converges to zero exponentially in time. Then we extend the above results to the fully nonlinear Vlasov–Poisson–Fokker–Planck equations in an interval with absorbing boundary conditions; the existence and the longtime behavior of weak solutions. Finally, we prove that the weak solution is actually a classical solution by showing the hypoellipticity of the solution away from the grazing set and the Hölder continuity of the solution up to the grazing set.     

Variational formulations for Vlasov–Poisson–Fokker–Planck systems

Time‐discrete variational schemes are introduced for both the Vlasov–Poisson–Fokker–Planck (VPFP) system and a natural regularization of the VPFP system. The time step in these variational schemes is governed by a certain Kantorovich functional (or scaled Wasserstein metric). The discrete variational schemes may be regarded as discretized versions of a gradient flow, or steepest descent, of the underlying free energy functionals for these systems. For the regularized VPFP system, convergence of the variational scheme is rigorously established. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

L∞‐estimates for the Vlasov–Poisson–Fokker–Planck equation

We consider the Vlasov–Poisson–Fokker–Planck equation in three dimensions as the backward Kolmogorov equation associated to a non‐linear diffusion process. In this way we derive new L^∞‐estimates on the spatial density which are uniform in the diffusion parameters. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Global existence for the Vlasov–Darwin system in ℝ3 for small initial data

We prove the global existence of weak solutions to the Vlasov–Darwin system in R3 for small initial data. The Vlasov–Darwin system is an approximation of the Vlasov–Maxwell model which is valid when the characteristic speed of the particles is smaller than the light velocity, but not too small. In contrast to the Vlasov–Maxwell system, the total energy conservation does not provide an L2‐bound on the transverse part of the electric field. This difficulty may be overcome by exploiting the underlying elliptic structure of the Darwin equations under a smallness assumption on the initial data. We finally investigate the convergence of the Vlasov–Darwin system towards the Vlasov–Poisson system. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Linearized quantum and relativistic Fokker–Planck–Landau equations

After a recent work on spectral properties and dispersion relations of the linearized classical Fokker–Planck–Landau operator [8], we establish in this paper analogous results for two more realistic collision operators: The first one is the Fokker–Planck–Landau collision operator obtained by relativistic calculations of binary interactions, and the second is a collision operator (of Fokker–Planck–Landau type) derived from the Boltzmann operator in which quantum effects have been taken into account. We apply Sobolev–Poincaré inequalities to establish the spectral gap of the linearized operators. Furthermore, the present study permits the precise knowledge of the behaviour of these linear Fokker–Planck–Landau operators including the transport part. Relations between the eigenvalues of these operators and the Fourier‐space variable in a neighbourhood of 0 are then investigated. This study is a first natural step when one looks for solutions near equilibrium and their hydrodynamic limit for the full non‐linear problem in all space in the spirit of several works [3, 6, 20, 2] on the non‐linear Boltzmann equation. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Vlasov–Poisson plasma model with non‐L1 data

It is considered the Vlasov–Poisson equation for a plasma confined in an unbounded cylinder and it is proven an existence and uniqueness result for non‐L₁ (but almost L₁) initial charge distribution. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Global weak solutions for the Vlasov–Poisson system with a point charge

We study the dynamics of three‐dimensional Vlasov‐Poisson system in the presence of a point charge with attractive interaction. Compared to the repulsive interaction,we cannot get a priori conversation law. Nevertheless,we are able to obtain bound of kinetic energy by introducing a Lyapunov functional. Combining this result with the concept of Diperna‐Lions flow, we establish global existence of weak solutions for this system. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On the one and one-half dimensional relativistic Vlasov–Maxwell–Fokker–Planck system with non-vanishing viscosity

The relativistic Vlasov–Maxwell–Fokker–Planck system is used in modelling distribution of charged particles in plasma. It consists of a transport equation coupled with the Maxwell system. The diffusion term in the equation models the collisions among particles, whereas the viscosity term signifies the dynamical frictional forces between the particles and the background reservoir. In the case of one space variable and two momentum variables, we prove the existence of a classical solution when the initial density decays fast enough with respect to the momentum variables. The solution which shares this same decay condition along with its first derivatives in the momentum variables is unique. © 1998 B. G. Teubner Stuttgart—John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Local existence for the one‐dimensional Vlasov–Poisson system with infinite mass

A collisionless plasma is modelled by the Vlasov–Poisson system in one dimension. We consider the situation in which mobile negative ions balance a fixed background of positive charge, which is independent of space and time, as ∣x∣ → ∞. Thus, the total positive charge and the total negative charge are both infinite. Smooth solutions with appropriate asymptotic behaviour are shown to exist locally in time, and criteria for the continuation of these solutions are established. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Long time behavior of a mean-field model of interacting neurons

We study the long time behavior of the solution to some McKean–Vlasov stochastic differential equation (SDE) driven by a Poisson process. In neuroscience, this SDE models the asymptotic dynamic of the membrane potential of a spiking neuron in a large network. We prove that for a small enough interaction parameter, any solution converges to the unique (in this case) invariant probability measure. To this aim, we first obtain global bounds on the jump rate and derive a Volterra type integral equation satisfied by this rate. We then replace temporary the interaction part of the equation by a deterministic external quantity (we call it the external current). For constant current, we obtain the convergence to the invariant probability measure. Using a perturbation method, we extend this result to more general external currents. Finally, we prove the result for the non-linear McKean–Vlasov equation.     

Exponential convergence toward equilibrium for homogeneous Fokker–Planck-type equations

We consider homogeneous solutions of the Vlasov–Fokker–Planck equation in plasma theory proving that they reach the equilibrium with a time exponential rate in various norms. By Csiszar–Kullback inequality, strong L¹-convergence is a consequence of the ‘sharp’ exponential decay of relative entropy and relative Fisher information. To prove exponential strong decay in Sobolev spaces H^k, k ⩾ 0, we take into account the smoothing effect of the Fokker–Planck kernel. Finally, we prove that in a metric for probability distributions recently introduced in [9] and studied in [4, 14] the decay towards equilibrium is exponential at a rate depending on the number of moments bounded initially. Uniform bounds on the solution in various norms are then combined, by interpolation inequalities, with the convergence in this weak metric, to recover the optimal rate of decay in Sobolev spaces. © 1998 by B. G. Teubner Stuttgart–John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Boundary value problem for the N‐dimensional time periodic Vlasov–Poisson system

In this work, we study the existence of time periodic weak solution for the N‐dimensional Vlasov–Poisson system with boundary conditions. We start by constructing time periodic solutions with compact support in momentum and bounded electric field for a regularized system. Then, the a priori estimates follow by computations involving the conservation laws of mass, momentum and energy. One of the key point is to impose a geometric hypothesis on the domain: we suppose that its boundary is strictly star‐shaped with respect to some point of the domain. These results apply for both classical or relativistic case and for systems with several species of particles. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On generalized Poisson–Nernst–Planck equations with inhomogeneous boundary conditions: a‐priori estimates and stability

In this paper, we consider the strongly nonlinear Nernst–Planck equations coupled with the quasi‐linear Poisson equation under inhomogeneous, moreover, nonlinear boundary conditions. This system describes joint multi‐component electrokinetics in a pore phase. The system is supplemented by the force balance and by the volume and positivity constraints. We establish well‐posedness of the problem in the variational setting. Namely, we prove the existence theorem supported by the energy and the entropy a‐priori estimates, and we provide the Lyapunov stability of the solution as well as its uniqueness in special cases. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On global symmetric solutions to the relativistic Vlasov–Poisson equation in three space dimensions

A collisionless plasma is modelled by the Vlasov–Maxwell system. In the presence of very large velocities, relativistic corrections are meaningful. When magnetic effects are ignored this formally becomes the relativistic Vlasov–Poisson equation. The initial datum for the phase space density ƒ₀(x, v) is assumed to be sufficiently smooth, non‐negative and cylindrically symmetric. If the (two‐dimensional) angular momentum is bounded away from zero on the support of ƒ₀(x, v), it is shown that a smooth solution to the Cauchy problem exists for all times. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Polynomial spectral collocation method for space fractional advection–diffusion equation

This article discusses the spectral collocation method for numerically solving nonlocal problems: one‐dimensional space fractional advection–diffusion equation; and two‐dimensional linear/nonlinear space fractional advection–diffusion equation. The differentiation matrixes of the left and right Riemann–Liouville and Caputo fractional derivatives are derived for any collocation points within any given bounded interval. Several numerical examples with different boundary conditions are computed to verify the efficiency of the numerical schemes and confirm the exponential convergence; the physical simulations for Lévy–Feller advection–diffusion equation and space fractional Fokker–Planck equation with initial δ‐peak and reflecting boundary conditions are performed; and the eigenvalue distributions of the iterative matrix for a variety of systems are displayed to illustrate the stabilities of the numerical schemes in more general cases. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 30: 514–535, 2014     

Non-linear stability for the Vlasov–Poisson system—the energy-Casimir method

The problem of stability of stationary solutions of the Vlasov–Poisson system has received a lot of attention in the physics literature, both in the stellar dynamics and the plasma physics cases. The energy-Casimir method has been used to prove non-linear stability for various conservative systems, but no rigorous application to the Vlasov–Poisson system has been given yet. We employ this method to prove non-linear stability of stationary solutions for the plasma physics case in three geometrically different settings.