UPPER MAXWELLIAN BOUNDS FOR THE SPATIALLY HOMOGENEOUS BOLTZMANN EQUATION I. M. GAMBA, V. PANFEROV, AND C. VILLANI Abstract. For the spatially homogeneous Boltzmann equation with cutoff hard potentials it is shown that solutions remain bounded from above, uniformly in time, by a Maxwellian distribution, provided the initial data have a Maxwellian upper bound. The main technique is based on a comparison principle that uses a certain dissipative property of the linear Boltzmann equation. Implications of the technique to propagation of upper Maxwellian bounds in the spatially- inhomogeneous case are discussed. 1. Introduction and main result The nonlinear Boltzmann equation is a classical model for a gas at low or moderate densities. The gas in a spatial domain ? ? Rd, d ≥ 2, is modeled by the mass density function f(x, v, t), (x, v) ? ? ? Rd, where v is the velocity variable, and t ? R is time. The equation for f reads (1) (∂t + v · ?x)f = Q(f) , where Q(f) is a quadratic integral operator, expressing the change of f due to instan- taneous binary collisions of particles. The precise form of Q(f) will be introduced below, cf. also [11, 35]. Although some of our results deal with more general situations, we will be mostly concerned with a special class of solutions that are independent of the spatial variable (spatially homogeneous solutions).
- also known
- upper maxwellian
- collision terms
- sphere model
- maxwellian bounds
- spatially homogeneous
- boltzmann equation