General entropic approximations for canonical systems described by kinetic equations (Q633118)

For each kinetic equation there is a possibility to have its numerical solution, but usually it is hard to obtain because of the complexity of its RHS. There are some alternatives: replacing the kinetic operator used in such equation by BGK or by multiplying this equation by a set of kinetic functions and integrate it on the velocity variable to obtain a set of so-called moment equations. In any case, this requires the resolution of an entropy minimization problem submitted to moments constraints in the spirit of rational extended thermodynamics. Thus in this paper we have a presentation of extension of the general construction of entropic approximation for kinetic operators modeling canonical systems. The author establishes a pure convex analysis proof of the existence problem, provided the entropy density function satisfies a few assumptions for a given class of sets \(E(f)\) that are built on the kinetic moments of the function \(f\). The resolution of this minimization problem over constraints was used to construct a Levermore operator and a closed set of hyperbolic moment equations for a dilute gas evolving in a tight porous medium. The paper consists of six sections and nine appendixes. Section 2 and 3 present the vocabulary, the main definitions and the tools for convex analysis that are used throughout this paper. Section 4 shows how to use these results to define Levermore operators and moments equations for thermalized systems. This is used in Section 5 to illustrate the theoretical results to the construction of moment equations for dilute gas in tight porous media and how to obtain the corresponding Levermore operators. In the appendices we have a presentation of a few properties that are helpful in the demonstration of the minimizer existence and also the proofs of given theorems.