Sharp entropy dissipation bounds and explicit rate of trend to equilibrium for the spatially homogeneous Boltzmann equation (Q1809296)

This interesting paper deals with the spatially homogeneous Boltzmann equation, \(\partial f/\partial t(t,v)= Q(f,f)\), \(t\geq 0\), \(v\in\mathbb{R}^N\) \((N\geq 2)\), \(f(0,.)= f_0\), \(f_0\geq 0\), \(f_0\in L^1(\mathbb{R}^N)\), where the unknown \(f\) is the probability density of particles in the velocity space, and \(Q(f,f)\) is the known Boltzmann collision operator. The variable \(v\) is the velocity of the particle. A new lower bound for the entropy dissipation associated with the spatially homogeneous Boltzmann equation is derived. This bound is expressed in terms of the relative entropy with respect to the equilibrium, and thus yields a differential inequality which proves convergence towards equilibrium in relative entropy, with an explicit rate. The main result gives a considerable refinement of the analogous estimate proposed by Carlen and Carvalho (1992, 1994), under very little additional assumptions. The proof takes advantage of the structure of Boltzmann's collision operator with respect to the tensor product, and its links with Fokker-Planck and Landau equations. The known Kac model is discussed as well.