Monte Carlo stochastic Galerkin methods for the Boltzmann equation with uncertainties: space-homogeneous case

In this paper we propose a novel numerical approach for the Boltzmann equation with uncertainties. The method combines the efficiency of classical direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) schemes in the phase space together with the accuracy of stochastic Galerkin (sG) methods in the random space. This hybrid formulation makes it possible to construct methods that preserve the main physical properties of the solution along with spectral accuracy in the random space. The schemes are developed and analyzed in the case of space homogeneous problems as these contain the main numerical difficulties. Several test cases are reported, both in the Maxwell and in the variable hard sphere (VHS) framework, and confirm the properties and performance of the new methods

An introduction to uncertainty quantification for kinetic equations and related problems

We overview some recent results in the field of uncertainty quantification for kinetic equations and related problems with random inputs. Uncertainties may be due to various reasons, such as lack of knowledge on the microscopic interaction details or incomplete information at the boundaries or on the initial data. These uncertainties contribute to the curse of dimensionality and the development of efficient numerical methods is a challenge. After a brief introduction on the main numerical techniques for uncertainty quantification in partial differential equations, we focus our survey on some of the recent progress on multi-fidelity methods and stochastic Galerkin methods for kinetic equations