Bose-Einstein condensation in a hyperbolic model for the Kompaneets equation (Q2834572)

Compton scattering is the dominant process responsible for energy transport in low-density or high-temperature plasmas. Soviet scientist Kompaneets derived in 1957 a nonlinear degenerate parabolic equation for the photon energy distribution. The authors consider a purely hyperbolic model which is obtained from Kompaneets equation by introducing the number density and then neglecting a diffusive term. The nonlinear hyperbolic PDE has the position-dependent flux and presents an evolution system attractive from a dynamical point of view. In particular, it has a one-parameter family of localized stationary entropy solutions, the largest of which asymptotically agrees with the classical Bose-Einstein statistics near origin. Every solution of this system converges to some nonzero stationary solution as time goes to infinity. While the total number of photons is formally conserved, if initially large enough it necessarily decreases after finite time through an out-flux of photons with zero energy. This dynamics corresponds to formation of a Bose-Einstein condensate, whose mass can only increase with time.