Convergence to rarefaction waves for the nonlinear Boltzmann equation and compressible Navier-Stokes equations (Q983271)

This work is concerned with the study of asymptotic equivalence of the one-space dimensional Boltzmann equation determining distributional density of particles in the space of locations, time and velocities in which the collision integral is evaluated by employing the classical hard-sphere model to its corresponding Navier-Stokes equations of compressible gas dynamics in the limit of small mean free path of fluid particles. It shown that whenever the fluid flow is a smooth rarefaction wave (or a centred rarefaction wave) with finite strength, then the corresponding Boltzmann solution exists globally in time and converges uniformly to the rarefaction wave for all times after the initial time as the coefficient of viscosity tends to zero. The decomposition of the Boltzmann solution into its macroscopic fluidic part represented by the well-known Maxwellian distribution and microscopic kinetic parts allows the authors to rewrite the Boltzmann equation in a form of compressible Navier-Stokes equations with certain source terms. By employing this approach it is also proven the asymptotic equivalence of the compressible Navier-Stokes equations to its corresponding Euler equations in the limit of small viscosity and heat conductivity. The analysis is heavily dependent on techniques of functional analysis.