Trend to the equilibrium for the Fokker-Planck system with an external magnetic field (Q2178475)

The purpose of this paper is to study the convergence to the equilibrium state for a version of the Vlasov-Fokker-Planck equation. The initial value problem under consideration is \[\partial_t F + v\cdot \nabla_x F -(v \times B_e)\cdot \nabla_v F = \nabla_v \cdot (\nabla_v+v)F, \qquad F(0,x,v) = F_0(x,v).\tag{1} \] Here \(v \in R^3$ and $x \in T^3 = [0,2\pi]^3\). The function $B_e(x)$ represents a fixed external magnetic field which is periodic in $R^3$. The Maxwellian \[\mu(v) = \frac{1}{(2\pi)^{3/2}}e^{-v^2/2}\] is a time independent, spatially homogeneous, solution of (1), i.e., the steady state solution. The goal of the paper is to determine the rate at which the solution, $F$, to (1) converges to $\mu(v)$. The analysis depends on $F$ being initially close to $\mu$. Therefore $f(t,x,v)$ is defined to be the standard perturbation of $\mu$ and $F(t,x,v) = \mu+\mu f$. In terms of the function $f(t,x,v)$ the equation (1) is rewritten as \[\partial_t f + v\cdot \nabla_x f -(v \times B_e)\cdot \nabla_v f = -(-\nabla_v + v)\cdot \nabla_v f, \qquad f(0,x,v) = f_0(x,v). \tag{2}\] Analysis in the paper is then applied to (2) and convergence $F \rightarrow \mu$ is obtained by showing $f \rightarrow 0$. The author is interested in proving the convergence of $F$ to $\mu$ with exponential decay in the largest possible function spaces. To do this weighted Lebesgue spaces are defined as follows: $L^p(m),\; 1 \le p \le 2,$ is the space associated with the norm $$ ||F||_{L^p(m)} = ||Fm||_{L^p} = \Big (\int_{R^3 \times T^3} F^p(x,v) m^p(v)\;dvdx \Big )^{1/p}, $$ in which $m(v)$ is a weight function. A first step in the analysis of (2) is to guarantee that the problem is well posed. A theorem is proved verifying that if $B_e \in C^{\infty}(T^3)$ and $f_0 \in C_0^{\infty}(T^3 \times R^3)$ then the IVP (2) admits a unique solution $f \in C^1([0,\infty),\; L^2(\mu^{1/2}))$. The author then proceeds to prove two theorems that show the convergence of the solution to (2) with exponential rate on spaces with an exponential weight function $\mu^{1/2}$. Specifically the function spaces are $L^2(\mu^{1/2})$ with norm $$ ||h||_{L^2(\mu^{1/2})} = \int_{R^3 \times T^3} |h(x,v)|^2 \mu(v)\; dx dv, $$ and $H^1(\mu^{1/2})$ with norm $$ ||h||_{H^1(\mu^{1/2})} = ||h||_{L^2(\mu^{1/2})} + ||\nabla_x h||_{L^2(\mu^{1/2})} + ||\nabla_v h||_{L^2(\mu^{1/2})}. $$ The first theorem states that if $f_0 \in L^2(\mu^{1/2})$ such that $\langle \langle f_0 \rangle \rangle = \int f_0 \; dvdx = 0$ and $B_e \in C^{\infty}(T^3)$ then there are constants $C,k > 0$ such that the solution $f$ to (2) satisfies $$ ||f(t)||_{L^2(\mu^{1/2})} \le Ce^{-kt} ||f_0||_{L^2(\mu^{1/2})}. $$ The second theorem proves that if $f_0 \in H^1(\mu^{1/2})$, $\langle \langle f_0 \rangle \rangle = 0$, and $B_e \in C^{\infty}(T^3)$ then the solution to (2) converges to zero with rate $$ ||f(t)||_{H^1(\mu^{1/2})} \le Ce^{-kt} ||f_0||_{H^1(\mu^{1/2})}.$$ A further objective of the paper is to extend the class of function spaces for which the convergence to the steady state is proved. In this direction the space $L^p(m)$ is considered with $m = \langle v \rangle^k = (1+|v|^2)^{k/2}$ and $p \in [1,2],\; k > 3(1-1/p)$. A theorem is then given that guarantees the convergence with exponential rate of the solution to (1) to the equilibrium solution in the space $L^p(m)$. Also, the weighted Sobolev space $\tilde W^{1,p}$ is defined as $\tilde W^{1,p} = h \in L^p(m)$ such that $\langle v \rangle h, \nabla_v h, \nabla_x h \in L^p(m)$, and a theorem is proved giving the convergence with exponential rate to the equilibrium state in the space $\tilde W^{1,p}$.