# American Institute of Mathematical Sciences

November  2009, 8(6): 1895-1916. doi: 10.3934/cpaa.2009.8.1895

## Rigorous derivation of the Landau equation in the weak coupling limit

 1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Mass. Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139, United States

Received  August 2008 Revised  April 2009 Published  August 2009

We examine a family of microscopic models of plasmas, with a parameter $\alpha$ comparing the typical distance between collisions to the strength of the grazing collisions. These microscopic models converge in distribution, in the weak coupling limit, to a velocity diffusion described by the linear Landau equation (also known as the Fokker-Planck equation). The present work extends and unifies previous results that handled the extremes of the parameter $\alpha$ to the whole range $(0, 1/2]$, by showing that clusters of overlapping obstacles are negligible in the limit. Additionally, we study the diffusion coefficient of the Landau equation and show it to be independent of the parameter.
Citation: Kay Kirkpatrick. Rigorous derivation of the Landau equation in the weak coupling limit. Communications on Pure & Applied Analysis, 2009, 8 (6) : 1895-1916. doi: 10.3934/cpaa.2009.8.1895
 [1] Seung-Yeal Ha, Doron Levy. Particle, kinetic and fluid models for phototaxis. Discrete & Continuous Dynamical Systems - B, 2009, 12 (1) : 77-108. doi: 10.3934/dcdsb.2009.12.77 [2] David Cowan. Rigid particle systems and their billiard models. Discrete & Continuous Dynamical Systems - A, 2008, 22 (1&2) : 111-130. doi: 10.3934/dcds.2008.22.111 [3] Heikki Haario, Leonid Kalachev, Marko Laine. Reduction and identification of dynamic models. Simple example: Generic receptor model. Discrete & Continuous Dynamical Systems - B, 2013, 18 (2) : 417-435. doi: 10.3934/dcdsb.2013.18.417 [4] N. Bellomo, A. Bellouquid. From a class of kinetic models to the macroscopic equations for multicellular systems in biology. Discrete & Continuous Dynamical Systems - B, 2004, 4 (1) : 59-80. doi: 10.3934/dcdsb.2004.4.59 [5] Pierre Carcaud, Pierre-Henri Chavanis, Mohammed Lemou, Florian Méhats. Evaporation law in kinetic gravitational systems described by simplified Landau models. Discrete & Continuous Dynamical Systems - B, 2010, 14 (3) : 907-934. doi: 10.3934/dcdsb.2010.14.907 [6] Pierre Degond, Simone Goettlich, Axel Klar, Mohammed Seaid, Andreas Unterreiter. Derivation of a kinetic model from a stochastic particle system. Kinetic & Related Models, 2008, 1 (4) : 557-572. doi: 10.3934/krm.2008.1.557 [7] Seung-Yeal Ha, Eitan Tadmor. From particle to kinetic and hydrodynamic descriptions of flocking. Kinetic & Related Models, 2008, 1 (3) : 415-435. doi: 10.3934/krm.2008.1.415 [8] Christian Klingenberg, Marlies Pirner, Gabriella Puppo. A consistent kinetic model for a two-component mixture with an application to plasma. Kinetic & Related Models, 2017, 10 (2) : 445-465. doi: 10.3934/krm.2017017 [9] Charles Nguyen, Stephen Pankavich. A one-dimensional kinetic model of plasma dynamics with a transport field. Evolution Equations & Control Theory, 2014, 3 (4) : 681-698. doi: 10.3934/eect.2014.3.681 [10] Darryl D. Holm, Vakhtang Putkaradze, Cesare Tronci. Collisionless kinetic theory of rolling molecules. Kinetic & Related Models, 2013, 6 (2) : 429-458. doi: 10.3934/krm.2013.6.429 [11] Emmanuel Frénod, Mathieu Lutz. On the Geometrical Gyro-Kinetic theory. Kinetic & Related Models, 2014, 7 (4) : 621-659. doi: 10.3934/krm.2014.7.621 [12] Valery Imaikin, Alexander Komech, Herbert Spohn. Scattering theory for a particle coupled to a scalar field. Discrete & Continuous Dynamical Systems - A, 2004, 10 (1&2) : 387-396. doi: 10.3934/dcds.2004.10.387 [13] Pierre Degond, Hailiang Liu. Kinetic models for polymers with inertial effects. Networks & Heterogeneous Media, 2009, 4 (4) : 625-647. doi: 10.3934/nhm.2009.4.625 [14] Paolo Barbante, Aldo Frezzotti, Livio Gibelli. A kinetic theory description of liquid menisci at the microscale. Kinetic & Related Models, 2015, 8 (2) : 235-254. doi: 10.3934/krm.2015.8.235 [15] José Antonio Alcántara, Simone Calogero. On a relativistic Fokker-Planck equation in kinetic theory. Kinetic & Related Models, 2011, 4 (2) : 401-426. doi: 10.3934/krm.2011.4.401 [16] Hung-Wen Kuo. Effect of abrupt change of the wall temperature in the kinetic theory. Kinetic & Related Models, 2019, 12 (4) : 765-789. doi: 10.3934/krm.2019030 [17] Michael Herty, Christian Ringhofer. Averaged kinetic models for flows on unstructured networks. Kinetic & Related Models, 2011, 4 (4) : 1081-1096. doi: 10.3934/krm.2011.4.1081 [18] Pierre Monmarché. Hypocoercive relaxation to equilibrium for some kinetic models. Kinetic & Related Models, 2014, 7 (2) : 341-360. doi: 10.3934/krm.2014.7.341 [19] Alina Chertock, Changhui Tan, Bokai Yan. An asymptotic preserving scheme for kinetic models with singular limit. Kinetic & Related Models, 2018, 11 (4) : 735-756. doi: 10.3934/krm.2018030 [20] Eliot Fried. New insights into the classical mechanics of particle systems. Discrete & Continuous Dynamical Systems - A, 2010, 28 (4) : 1469-1504. doi: 10.3934/dcds.2010.28.1469

2018 Impact Factor: 0.925