Tanaka Theorem for Inelastic Maxwell Models

We show that the Euclidean Wasserstein distance is contractive for inelastic homogeneous Boltzmann kinetic equations in the Maxwellian approximation and its associated Kac-like caricature. This property is as a generalization of the Tanaka theorem to inelastic interactions. Consequences are drawn on the asymptotic behavior of solutions in terms only of the Euclidean Wasserstein distance

Infinite energy solutions to the homogeneous Boltzmann equation

The goal of this work is to present an approach to the homogeneous Boltzmann equation for Maxwellian molecules with a physical collision kernel which allows us to construct unique solutions to the initial value problem in a space of probability measures defined via the Fourier transform. In that space, the second moment of a measure is not assumed to be finite, so infinite energy solutions are not {\it a priori} excluded from our considerations. Moreover, we study the large time asymptotics of solutions and, in a particular case, we give an elementary proof of the asymptotic stability of self-similar solutions obtained by A.V. Bobylev and C. Cercignani [J. Stat. Phys. {\bf 106} (2002), 1039--1071]

Well-posedness of the spatially homogeneous Landau equation for soft potentials

We consider the spatially homogeneous Landau equation of kinetic theory, and provide a differential inequality for the Wasserstein distance with quadratic cost between two solutions. We deduce some well-posedness results. The main difficulty is that this equation presents a singularity for small relative velocities. Our uniqueness result is the first one in the important case of soft potentials. Furthermore, it is almost optimal for a class of moderately soft potentials, that is for a moderate singularity. Indeed, in such a case, our result applies for initial conditions with finite mass, energy, and entropy. For the other moderatley soft potentials, we assume additionnally some moment conditions on the initial data. For very soft potentials, we obtain only a local (in time) well-posedness result, under some integrability conditions. Our proof is probabilistic, and uses a stochastic version of the Landau equation, in the spirit of Tanaka

A gradient flow approach to the Boltzmann equation

We show that the spatially homogeneous Boltzmann equation evolves as the gradient flow of the entropy with respect to a suitable geometry on the space of probability measures which takes the collision process into account. This gradient flow structure allows to give a new proof for the convergence of Kac's random walk to the homogeneous Boltzmann equation, exploiting the stability of gradient flows.Comment: Presentation reworked and streamlined. Variational characterization of the Boltzmann equation simplified using the action of curve without referring to the associated distance function. Discussion of the distance moved to appendix. Additional assumption missing in previous version on moment bounds of order higher than 2 for Kac walk added in Thm 1.

Non-Equilibrium Steady States in Kac's Model Coupled to a Thermostat

This paper studies the existence, uniqueness and convergence to non-equilibrium steady states in Kac's model with an external coupling. We work in both Fourier distances and Wasserstein distances. Our methods work in the case where the external coupling is not a Maxwellian equilibrium. This provides an example of a non-equilibrium steady state. We also study the behaviour as the number of particles goes to infinity and show quantitative estimates on the convergence rate of the first marginal.Comment: 17 pages, no figure

Cooling process for inelastic Boltzmann equations for hard spheres, Part I: The Cauchy problem

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, for a restricted class of collision rates. Concerning the long-time behaviour, we give conditions for the cooling process to occur or not in finite time.Comment: 45 page

Quantitative uniform in time chaos propagation for Boltzmann collision processes

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" shares similarities with the one of a L\'evy process and the first {\em quantitative} chaos propagation result for the spatially homogeneous Boltzmann equation for hard spheres (improvement of the %non-contructive convergence result of Sznitman \cite{S1}). Moreover our chaos propagation results are the first uniform in time ones for Boltzmann collision processes (to our knowledge), which partly answers the important question raised by Kac of relating the long-time behavior of a particle system with the one of its mean-field limit, and we provide as a surprising application a new proof of the well-known result of gaussian limit of rescaled marginals of uniform measure on the $N$-dimensional sphere as $N$ goes to infinity (more applications will be provided in a forthcoming work). Our results are based on a new method which reduces the question of chaos propagation to the one of proving a purely functional estimate on some generator operators ({\em consistency estimate}) together with fine stability estimates on the flow of the limiting non-linear equation ({\em stability estimates})

A gradient flow approach to linear Boltzmann equations

We introduce a gradient flow formulation of linear Boltzmann equations. Under a diffusive scaling we derive a diffusion equation by using the machinery of gradient flows