Search

We consider a system of N point particles moving on a d-dimensional torus. Each particle is subject to a uniform field E and random speed conserving collisions. This model is a variant of the Drude-Lorentz model of electrical conduction. In order to avoid heating by the external field, the particles also interact with a Gaussian thermostat which keeps the total kinetic energy of the system constant. The thermostat induces a mean-field type of interaction between the particles. Here we prove that, starting from a product measure, in the large N limit, the one particle velocity distribution satisfies a self consistent Vlasov-Boltzmann equation.. This is a consequence of "propagation of chaos", which we also prove for this model., Comment: This version adds affiliation and grant information; otherwise it is unchanged

We investigate the geometry of typical equilibrium configurations for a lattice gas in a finite macroscopic domain with attractive, long range Kac potentials. We focus on the case when the system is below the critical temperature and has a fixed number of occupied sites.We connect the properties of typical configurations to the analysis of the constrained minimizers of a mesoscopic non-local free energy functional, which we prove to be the large deviation functional for a density profile in the canonical Gibbs measure with prescribed global density. In the case in which the global density of occupied sites lies between the two equilibrium densities that one would have without a constraint on the particle number, a "droplet" of the high (low) density phase may or may not form in a background of the low (high) density phase. We determine the critical density for droplet formation, and the nature of the droplet, as a function of the temperature and the size of the system, by combining the present large deviation principle with the analysis of the mesoscopic functional given in CCELM

We study the structure of the constrained minimizers of the Gates-Lebowitz-Penrose free-energy functional ${\mathcal F}_{\rm GLP}(m)$, non-local functional of a density field $m(x)$, $x\in {\mathcal T}_L$, a $d$-dimensional torus of side length $L$. At low temperatures, ${\mathcal F}_{\rm GLP}$ is not convex, and has two distinct global minimizers, corresponding to two equilibrium states. Here we constrain the average density $L^{-d}\int_{{\cal T}_L}m(x)\dd x$ to be a fixed value $n$ between the densities in the two equilibrium states, but close to the low density equilibrium value. In this case, a "droplet" of the high density phase may or may not form in a background of the low density phase, depending on the values $n$ and $L$. We determine the critical density for droplet formation, and the nature of the droplet, as a function of $n$ and $L$. The relation between the free energy and the large deviations functional for a particle model with long-range Kac potentials, proven in some cases, and expected to be true in general, then provides information on the structure of typical microscopic configurations of the Gibbs measure when the range of the Kac potential is large enough.

There are not many kinetic models where it is possible to prove bifurcation phenomena for any value of the Knudsen number. Here we consider a binary mixture over a line with collisions and long range repulsive interaction between different species. It undergoes a segregation phase transition at sufficiently low temperature. The spatially homogeneous Maxwellian equilibrium corresponding to the mixed phase, minimizing the free energy at high temperature, changes into a maximizer when the temperature goes below a critical value, while non homogeneous minimizers, corresponding to coexisting segregated phases, arise. We prove that they are dynamically stable with respect to the Vlasov-Boltzmann evolution, while the homogeneous equilibrium becomes dynamically unstable.

We consider the Boltzmann equation for a gas in a horizontal slab, subject to a gravitational force. The boundary conditions are of diffusive type, specifying the wall temperatures, so that the top temperature is lower than the bottom one (Benard setup). We consider a 2-dimensional convective stationary solution, which is close for small Knudsen number to the convective stationary solution of the Oberbeck-Boussinesq equations, near above the bifurcation point, and prove its stability under 2-d small perturbations, for Rayleigh number above and close to the bifurcation point and for small Knudsen number.

We prove theorem characterizing the minimizers in a model for condensation based on the Cahn Hilliard free energy functional. In particular, we exactly determine the critical density for droplet formation.

We study the coexistence of phases in a two--species model whose free energy is given by the scaling limit of a system with long range interactions (Kac potentials) which are attractive between particles of the same species and repulsive between different species., Comment: 32 pages, 1 fig, plain tex, typeset twice

We consider the asymmetric simple exclusion process in $d\ge 3$ with open boundaries. The particle reservoirs of constant densities are modeled by birth and death processes at the boundary. We prove that, if the initial density and the densities of the boundary reservoirs differ for order of $\epsilon$ from 1/2, the density empirical field, rescaled as $\epsilon^{-1}$, converges to the solution of the initial-boundary value problem for the viscous Burgers equation in a finite domain with given density on the boundary.

We study the evolution of a two component fluid consisting of ``blue'' and ``red'' particles which interact via strong short range (hard core) and weak long range pair potentials. At low temperatures the equilibrium state of the system is one in which there are two coexisting phases. Under suitable choices of space-time scalings and system parameters we first obtain (formally) a mesoscopic kinetic Vlasov-Boltzmann equation for the one particle position and velocity distribution functions, appropriate for a description of the phase segregation kinetics in this system. Further scalings then yield Vlasov-Euler and incompressible Vlasov-Navier-Stokes equations. We also obtain, via the usual truncation of the Chapman-Enskog expansion, compressible Vlasov-Navier-Stokes equations., Comment: TeX, 50 pages

The authors in a previous paper proved the hydrodynamic incompressible limit in $d\ge 3$ for a thermal lattice gas, namely a law of large numbers for the density, velocity field and energy. In this paper the equilibrium fluctuations for this model are studied and a central limit theorem is proved for a suitable modification of the vector fluctuation field $\z(t)$, whose components are the density, velocity and energy fluctuations fields. We consider a modified fluctuation field $\xi^\e(t)=\exp \{-\ve^{-1}t E\}\z^\ve$, where $E$ is the linearized Euler operator around the equilibrium and prove that $\xi^\e(t)$ converges to a vector generalized Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process $\xi(t)$, which is formally solution of the stochastic differential equation $d \xi(t)=N\xi(t)dt+ B dW_t$, with $ BB^*=-2 NC$, where $C$ is the compressibility matrix, $N$ is a matrix whose entries are second order differential operators and $B$ is a mean zero Gaussian field. The relation $-2NC=BB^*$ is the fluctuation-dissipation relation., Comment: 32 pages

We consider a lattice gas with general short range interactions and a Kac potential $J_\gamma({r})$ of range $\gamma^{-1}$, $\gamma>0$, evolving via particles hopping to nearest neighbor empty sites with rates which satisfy detailed balance with respect to the equilibrium measure. Scaling space like $\gamma^{-1}$ and time like $\gamma^{-2}$, we prove that in the limit $\gamma \to 0$ the macroscopic density profile $\rho({r},t)$ satisfies a integro-differential equation which is in the form of the gradient flux of the energy functional $\cal F$, with a mobility given by the Einstein relation Beside a regularity condition on J, the only requirement for this result is that the reference system satisfy the hypotheses of the Varadhan--Yau Theorem leading to the equation for $J\equiv 0$. Therefore the equation holds also if $\cal F$ achieves its minimum on non constant density profiles and this includes the cases in which {\sl phase segregation} occurs. Using the same techniques we also derive hydrodynamic equations for the densities of a two component A-B mixture with long range repulsive interactions between A and B particles. The equations for the densities $\rho_A$ and $\rho_B$ are again in the form of the gradient flux. They describe, at low temperatures, the demixing transition in which segregation takes place via vacancies, i.e. jumps to empty sites. In the limit of very few vacancies the problem becomes similar to phase segregation in a continuum system in the so called incompressible limit., Comment: 24 pages, plain Tex, typeset twice

We study, globaly in time, the velocity distribution $f(v,t)$ of a spatially homogeneous system that models a system of electrons in a weakly ionized plasma, subjected to a constant external electric field $E$. The density $f$ satisfies a Boltzmann type kinetic equation containing a full nonlinear electron-electron collision term as well as linear terms representing collisions with reservoir particles having a specified Maxwellian distribution. We show that when the constant in front of the nonlinear collision kernel, thought of as a scaling parameter, is sufficiently strong, then the $L^1$ distance between $f$ and a certain time dependent Maxwellian stays small uniformly in $t$. Moreover, the mean and variance of this time dependent Maxwellian satisfy a coupled set of nonlinear ODE's that constitute the ``hydrodynamical'' equations for this kinetic system. This remain true even when these ODE's have non-unique equilibria, thus proving the existence of multiple stabe stationary solutions for the full kinetic model. Our approach relies on scale independent estimates for the kinetic equation, and entropy production estimates. The novel aspects of this approach may be useful in other problems concerning the relation between the kinetic and hydrodynamic scales globably in time., Comment: 30 pages, in TeX, to appear in Archive for Rational Mechanics and Analysis: author's email addresses: carlen@math.gatech.ed, resposit@hilbert.rutgers.edu, lebowitz@math.rutgers.edu, MARRA@axtov1.roma2.infn.it, rokhlenk@math.rutgers.edu