On the spatially homogeneous landau equation for hard potentials part i : existence, uniqueness and smoothness (Q4947025)

The authors of this interesting paper study the Cauchy problem for the spatially homogeneous Landau equation (also called Fokker-Planck-Landau) in the case of hard potentials, \(\partial f/\partial t=Q(f,f)\), where \(f(t,v)\geq 0\) is the density of particles which at time \(t\in\mathbb{R}^+\) have velocity \(v\in \mathbb{R}^N\) \((N\geq 2)\). The kernel \(Q(f,f)\) is a quadratic nonlocal operator acting only on the \(v\) variable and modelling the effect of the (grazing) collisions between particles. The kernel \(Q(f,f)\) depends on the so-called hard potential \(\psi (|z|)\) with polynomial rate having the form \(\Lambda|z|^{ \gamma+2}\) \((\Lambda>0\), \(\gamma\in (0,1])\). This interesting case corresponds to interactions with inverse \(s\)-power forces for \(s>2N-1\). A detailed discussion of the Cauchy problem for the considered equation is given. Some interesting qualitative properties of the solutions are considered as well. The main results can be summarized in the following way: under the hypotheses on the initial data \(f_{in}\in L^1_{2+\delta}\cap L\log L(\mathbb{R}^3)\) \((\delta>0)\) there is a unique (weak) solution \(f\) to the considered equation. A refinement of this result for \(f_{in}\in L^1_{2+ \delta}(\mathbb{R}^3)\) is shown as well. A theorem for uniqueness of the weak solution is proved provided that \(f_{in}\in L^2_s (\mathbb{R}^3_v)\) with \(s>5\gamma +15\).