The BGK Model with External Confining Potential: Existence,Long-Time Behaviour and Time-Periodic Maxwellian Equilibria

We study global existence and long time behaviour for the inhomogeneous nonlinear BGK model for the Boltzmann equation with an external confining potential. For an initial datum f ₀≥0 with bounded mass, entropy and total energy we prove existence and strong convergence in L ¹ to a Maxwellian equilibrium state, by compactness arguments and multipliers techniques. Of particular interest is the case with an isotropic harmonic potential, in which Boltzmann himself found infinitely many time-periodic Maxwellian steady states. This behaviour is shared with the Boltzmann equation and other kinetic models. For all these systems we study the multistability of the time-periodic Maxwellians and provide necessary conditions on f ₀ to identify the equilibrium state, both in L ¹ and in Lyapunov sense. Under further assumptions on f, these conditions become also sufficient for the identification of the equilibrium in L ¹.     

Moment inequalities for the boltzmann equation and applications to spatially homogeneous problems

Some inequalities for the Boltzmann collision integral are proved. These inequalities can be considered as a generalization of the well-known Povzner inequality. The inequalities are used to obtain estimates of moments of the solution to the spatially homogeneous Boltzmann equation for a wide class of intermolecular forces. We obtain simple necessary and sufficient conditions (on the potential) for the uniform boundedness of all moments. For potentials with compact support the following statement is proved: if all moments of the initial distribution function are bounded by the corresponding moments of the MaxwellianA exp(−Bv ²), then all moments of the solution are bounded by the corresponding moments of the other MaxwellianA ₁ exp[−B ₁(t)v ²] for anyt > 0; moreoverB(t) = const for hard spheres. An estimate for a collision frequency is also obtained.     

On boltzmann equations and fokker—planck asymptotics: Influence of grazing collisions

In this paper, we are interested in the influence of grazing collisions, with deflection angle near π/2, in the space-homogeneous Boltzmann equation. We consider collision kernels given by inverse-sth-power force laws, and we deal with general initial data with bounded mass, energy, and entropy. First, once a suitable weak formulation is defined, we prove the existence of solutions of the spatially homogeneous Boltzmann equation, without angular cutoff assumption on the collision kernel, fors ≥ 7/3. Next, the convergence of these solutions to solutions of the Landau-Fokker-Planck equation is studied when the collision kernel concentrates around the value π/2. For very soft interactions, 2<s<7/3, the existence of weak solutions is discussed concerning the Boltzmann equation perturbed by a diffusion term     

On the Boltzmann equation in unbounded space far from equilibrium,and the limit of zero mean free path

This paper studies Loeb solutions of the Boltzmann equation in unbounded space under natural initial conditions of finite mass, energy, and entropy. An existence theory for large initial data is presented. Maxwellian behaviour is obtained in the limits of zero mean free path and of infinite time. In the standard, space-homogeneous, hard potential case, the infinite time limit is of strongL ¹ type.     

Conservative Solutions to a Nonlinear Variational Wave Equation

We establish the existence of a conservative weak solution to the Cauchy problem for the nonlinear variational wave equation u _tt − c(u)(c(u)u _x ) _x =0, for initial data of finite energy. Here c(·) is any smooth function with uniformly positive bounded values.     

Long-Time Asymptotics for Strong Solutions¶of the Thin Film Equation

In this paper we investigate the large-time behavior of strong solutions to the one-dimensional fourth order degenerate parabolic equation u _t =−(u u _xxx ) _x , modeling the evolution of the interface of a spreading droplet. For nonnegative initial values u ₀(x)∈H ¹(ℝ), both compactly supported or of finite second moment, we prove explicit and universal algebraic decay in the L ¹-norm of the strong solution u(x,t) towards the unique (among source type solutions) strong source type solution of the equation with the same mass. The method we use is based on the study of the time decay of the entropy introduced in [13] for the porous medium equation, and uses analogies between the thin film equation and the porous medium equation. Received: 2 February 2001 / Accepted: 7 October 2001     

On the Rate of Explosion for Infinite Energy Solutions of the Spatially Homogeneous Boltzmann Equation

Let μ ₀ be a probability measure on ℝ³ representing an initial velocity distribution for the spatially homogeneous Boltzmann equation for pseudo Maxwellian molecules. As long as the initial energy is finite, the solution μ _t will tend to a Maxwellian limit. We show here that if , then instead, all of the mass “explodes to infinity” at a rate governed by the tail behavior of μ ₀. Specifically, for L0, define

On the fluid-dynamical approximation to the Boltzmann equation at the level of the Navier-Stokes equation

The compressible and heat-conductive Navier-Stokes equation obtained as the second approximation of the formal Chapman-Enskog expansion is investigated on its relations to the original nonlinear Boltzmann equation and also to the incompressible Navier-Stokes equation. The solutions of the Boltzmann equation and the incompressible Navier-Stokes equation for small initial data are proved to be asymptotically equivalent (mod decay ratet ^–5/4) ast+ to that of the compressible Navier-Stokes equation for the corresponding initial data.     

Uniqueness and Stability of Riemann Solutions¶with Large Oscillation in Gas Dynamics

We prove the uniqueness of Riemann solutions in the class of entropy solutions in with arbitrarily large oscillation for the 3 × 3 system of Euler equations in gas dynamics. The proof for solutions with large oscillation is based on a detailed analysis of the global behavior of shock curves in the phase space and the singularity of centered rarefaction waves near the center in the physical plane. The uniqueness of Riemann solutions yields their inviscid large-time stability under arbitrarily large perturbation of the Riemann initial data, as long as the corresponding solutions are in L ^∞ and have local bounded total variation satisfying a natural condition on its growth with time. No specific reference to any particular method for constructing the entropy solutions is needed. The uniqueness result for Riemann solutions can easily be extended to entropy solutions U(x,t), piecewise Lipschitz in x, for any t > 0, with arbitrarily large oscillation. Received: 23 April 2001 / Accepted: 20 September 2001     

代位合金中的空穴扩散和有序化

本文根据空穴扩散促使有序化的观点导出决定恒温有序化几率的一个公式。这个公式中包括扩散系数,柯诺库夫温度及其他实验都可以直接测定的数量。引用了现有的这些数量的实验数据,证明所提出的有序化几率公式和实验结果是符合的。     

Entropy production estimates for Boltzmann equations with physically realistic collision kernels

We establish strict entropy production bounds for the Boltzmann equation with the hard-sphere collision kernel. Using these entropy production bounds, we prove results asserting that the rate at which strongL ¹ convergence to equilibrium occurs is uniform in wide classes of initial data. This extends our previous results in this direction, which applied only to a very special collision kernel. Moreover, the present results provide computable lower bounds; compactness arguments are entirely avoided. The uniformity is an important ingredient in our study of scaling limits of solutions of the non-spatially homogeneous Boltzmann equation, and is the main focus of this paper. However, the results obtained here provide the only framework known to us in which one can obtain computable estimates on the time it takes a solution of the spatially homogeneous Boltzmann equation with initial data far from equilibrium to reach any given small strongL ¹ neighborhood of equilibrium.     

A class of nonmixing dynamical systems with monotonic semigroup property

In order to illustrate the class of conservative dynamical systems for which a Boltzmann entropy can be obtained under finite coarse-graining [2], we consider dynamical systems defined by the shift transformation on K , where K is any finite set of integers. We give a class of non-Markovian invariant measures that verify the Chapman-Kolmogorov equation (equivalent to a Boltzmann entropy) for any positive stochastic matrix and that are ergodic but not weakly mixing.     

Stability of the Boltzmann equation with potential forces on torus

In this paper, we are concerned with the stability of solutions to the Cauchy problem of the Boltzmann equation with potential forces on torus. It is shown that the natural steady state with the symmetry of origin is asymptotically stable in the Sobolev space with exponential rate in time for any initially smooth, periodic, origin symmetric small perturbation, which preserves the same total mass, momentum and mechanical energy. For the non-symmetric steady state, it is also shown that it is stable in L¹-norm for any initial data with the finite total mass, mechanical energy and entropy.     

Strict entropy production bounds and stability of the rate of convergence to equilibrium for the Boltzmann equation

We first consider the Boltzmann equation with a collision kernel such that all kinematically possible collisions are run at equal rates. This is the simplest Boltzmann equation having the compressible Euler equations as a scaling limit. For it we prove a stability result for theH-theorem which says that when the entropy production is small, the solution of the spatially homogeneous Boltzmann equation is necessarily close to equilibrium in the entropie sense, and therefore strongL ¹ sense. We use this to prove that solutions to the spatially homogeneous Boltzmann equation converge to equilibrium in the entropie sense with a rate of convergence which is uniform in the initial condition for all initial conditions belonging to certain natural regularity classes. Every initial condition with finite entropy andp ^th velocity moment for some p>2 belongs to such a class. We then extend these results by a simple monotonicity argument to the case where the collision rate is uniformly bounded below, which covers a wide class of slightly modified physical collision kernels. These results are the basis of a study of the relation between scaling limits of solutions of the Boltzmann equation and hydrodynamics which will be developed in subsequent papers; the program is described here.On leave from School of Mathematics, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332.On leave from C.F.M.C. and Departamento de Matemática da Faculdade de Ciencias de Lisboa, 1700 Lisboa codex, Portugal.     

Existence of Solutions of a Kinetic Equation Modeling Cometary Flows

A global existence theorem is presented for a kinetic problem of the form _t f+v· _x f=Q(f), f(t=0)=f ₀, where Q(f) is a simplified model wave–particle collision operator extracted from quasilinear plasma physics. Evaluation of Q(f) requires the computation of the mean velocity of the distribution f. Therefore, the assumptions on the data are such that vacuum regions, where the mean velocity is not well defined, are excluded. Also the initial data are assumed to have bounded total energy. As additional results conservation laws for mass, momentum, and energy are derived, as well as an entropy dissipation law and the propagation of higher order moments.     

On weak and strong convergence to equilibrium for solutions to the linear Boltzmann equation

This paper considers the linear space-inhomogeneous Boltzmann equation for a distribution function in a bounded domain with general boundary conditions together with an external potential force. The paper gives results on strong convergence to equilibrium, whent, for general initial data; first in the cutoff case, and then for infinite-range collision forces. The proofs are based on the properties of translation continuity and weak convergence to equilibrium. To handle these problems generalH-theorems (concerning monotonicity in time of convex entropy functionals) are presented. Furthermore, the paper gives general results on collision invariants, i.e., on functions satisfying detailed balance relations in a binary collision.     

Vacuum Radiation,Entropy, and Molecular Chaos

Vacuum radiation causes a particle to make a random walk about its dynamical trajectory. In this random walk the root mean square change in spatial coordinate is proportional to t ^1/2, and the fractional changes in momentum and energy are proportional to t ^−1/2, where t is time. Thus the exchange of energy and momentum between a particle and the vacuum tends to zero over time. At the end of a mean free path the fractional change in momentum of a particle in a gas is very small. However, at the end of the mean free path each particle undergoes an interaction that magnifies the preceding change, and the net result is that the momentum distribution of the particles in a gas is randomized in a few collision times. In this way the random action of vacuum radiation and its subsequent magnification by molecular interaction produces entropy increase. This process justifies the assumption of molecular chaos used in the Boltzmann transport equation.     

Entropy dissipation and moment production for the Boltzmann equation

LetH(f/M)=flog(f/M)dv be the relative entropy off and the Maxwellian with the same mass, momentum, and energy, and denote the corresponding entropy dissipation term in the Boltzmann equation byD(f)=Q(f,f) logf dv. An example is presented which shows that |D(f)/H(f/M)| can be arbitrarily small. This example is a sequence of isotropic functions, and the estimates are very explicitly given by a simple formula forD which holds for such functions. The paper also gives a simplified proof of the so-called Povzner inequality, which is a geometric inequality for the magnitudes of the velocities before and after an elastic collision. That inequality is then used to prove that f(v) |v|^s dt<C(t), wheref is the solution of the spatially homogeneous Boltzmann equation. HereC(t) is an explicitly given function dependings and the mass, energy, and entropy of the initial data.     

Computing multi-valued physical observables for the high frequency limit of symmetric hyperbolic systems

We develop a level set method for the computation of multi-valued physical observables (density, velocity, energy, etc.) for the high frequency limit of symmetric hyperbolic systems in any number of space dimensions. We take two approaches to derive the method.The first one starts with a weakly coupled system of an eikonal equation for phase S and a transport equation for density ρ:

The main idea is to evolve the density near the n-dimensional bi-characteristic manifold of the eikonal (Hamiltonian–Jacobi) equation, which is identified as the common zeros of n level set functions in phase space . These level set functions are generated from solving the Liouville equation with initial data chosen to embed the phase gradient. Simultaneously, we track a new quantity f = ρ(t,x,k)|det(_k)| by solving again the Liouville equation near the obtained zero level set = 0 but with initial density as initial data. The multi-valued density and higher moments are thus resolved by integrating f along the bi-characteristic manifold in the phase directions.The second one uses the high frequency limit of symmetric hyperbolic systems derived by the Wigner transform. This gives rise to Liouville equations in the phase space with measure-valued solution in its initial data. Due to the linearity of the Liouville equation we can decompose the density distribution into products of function, each of which solves the Liouville equation with L^∞ initial data on any bounded domain. It yields higher order moments such as energy and energy flux.The main advantages of these new approaches, in contrast to the standard kinetic equation approach using the Liouville equation with a Dirac measure initial data, include: (1) the Liouville equations are solved with L^∞ initial data, and a singular integral involving the Dirac-δ function is evaluated only in the post-processing step, thus avoiding oscillations and excessive numerical smearing; (2) a local level set method can be utilized to significantly reduce the computation in the phase space. These methods can be used to compute all physical observables for multi-dimensional problems.Our method applies to the wave fields corresponding to simple eigenvalues of the dispersion matrix. One such example is the wave equation, which will be studied numerically in this paper.     

Spatially Periodic Solutions in Relativistic Isentropic Gas Dynamics

We consider the initial value problem, with periodic initial data, for the Euler equations in relativistic isentropic gas dynamics, for ideal polytropic gases which obey a constitutive equation, relating pressure p and density , p=², with 1, 0<<c, where c is the speed of light. Global existence of periodic entropy solutions for initial data sufficiently close to a constant state follows from a celebrated result of Glimm and Lax (1970). We prove that given any periodic initial data of locally bounded total variation, satisfying the physical restrictions ||v₀||<c, where v is the gas velocity, there exists a globally defined spatially periodic entropy solution for the Cauchy problem, if 1<₀, for some ₀>1, depending on the initial bounds. The solution decays in L_loc¹ to its mean value as t.