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# On the Boltzmann equation for diffusively excited granular media

## Introduction

In recent years a significant interest has been focused on the study of kinetic models for granular flows . Depending on the external conditions (geometry, gravity, interactions with surface of a vessel) granular systems may be in a variety of regimes, displaying typical features of solids, liquids or gases and also producing quite surprising effects . Finding a systematic way to describe such systems under different conditions is a physical problem of considerable importance. At the same time, recent developments in this area gave rise to several novel mathematical models with interesting properties.

In the case of rapid, dilute flows, the binary collisions between particles may be considered the main mechanism of inter-particle interactions in the system. In such cases methods of the kinetic theory of rarefied gases, based on the Boltzmann-Enskog equations have been applied .

A very important feature of inter-particle interactions in granular flows is their inelastic character: the total kinetic energy is generally not preserved in the collisions. Therefore, in order to keep the system out of the “freezing” state, when particles cease to move and the system becomes static, a certain driving mechanism, supplying the system with energy, is required. Physically realistic driven regimes include excitation from the moving boundary, through-flow of air, fluidized beds, gravity, and other special conditions. We accept a simple model for a driving mechanism, the so-called thermal bath, in which we assume that the particles are subject to uncorrelated random accelerations between the collisions. Such a model was studied in  in the one-dimensional case, and in  in general dimension.

We study the model  in the space-homogeneous regime, described by the following equation:

(0.1)
$$_tf\mu \mathrm{\Delta }_vf=Q(f,f),v^N,t>0.$$

Here $`f`$ is the one-particle distribution function (particle density function in the phase space), which is a nonnegative function of the microscopic velocity $`v`$ and the time $`t`$; we shall assume $`N2`$ (dimension 1 could be treated as well but would require a few notational changes). On the right-hand side of equation (0.1) there is the inelastic Boltzmann-Enskog operator for hard spheres (the details of which are given below); the term $`\mu \mathrm{\Delta }_vf`$, $`\mu =\text{const}`$, represents the effect of the heat bath. Without loss of generality we can set $`\mu =1`$ (see Section 1.5), which we will from now on assume. In the sequel, we shall often abbreviate $`\mathrm{\Delta }_v`$ into just $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$.

One of the interesting features of the model (0.1) is the fact that it possesses nontrivial steady states described by the balance between the collisions and the thermal bath forcing. Such steady states are given by solutions of the equation

(0.2)
$$\mu \mathrm{\Delta }_vf+Q(f,f)=0,v^N.$$

Solutions of (0.2) have been studied in  by means of formal expansions. The same problem was also studied in  and in , for a different kind of interactions, namely the Maxwell pseudo-particle model , by methods of expansions and the Fourier transforms, respectively. In reference  the rigorous existence of radially symmetric steady solutions for the Maxwell model was established.

The aim of this study is to develop a rigorous theory of for the inelastic hard sphere model, and to investigate the regularity and qualitative properties of the solutions. We prove that equation (0.1) has a unique weak solution under basic assumptions that the initial data have bounded mass and kinetic energy, and satisfy some additional conditions (bounded entropy for existence, $`L^2(^N)`$ for regularity, and bounded third moment in $`|v|`$ for uniqueness). The thermal bath (diffusion) term in (0.1) is responsible for the parabolic regularity of solutions: the weak solutions become smooth, classical solutions after arbitrarily short time. We apply generally similar techniques, based on elliptic regularity, to treat the steady case. Finally, we establish lower bounds, for both steady and time-dependent solutions, proving that the distribution tails are “overpopulated” with respect to the Maxwellian, as was suggested in . The lower bound for steady solutions is given by a “stretched exponential” $`A\mathrm{exp}(a|v|^{3/2})`$, with $`a=a(\alpha ,\mu )`$. In the time-dependent case the bound holds with $`A=A(t)`$, where $`A(t)`$ is a generally decaying function of time.

We emphasize that the appearance of the “3/2” exponent is a specific feature of the hard sphere model with diffusion, and could be predicted by dimensional arguments (cf. ). On the other hand, the Maxwell model with diffusion results in a high-velocity tail with asymptotic behavior $`C\mathrm{exp}(c|v|)`$, see . As a general rule, the exponents in the tails are expected to depend on the driving and collision mechanisms . In fact, deviations of the steady states of granular systems from Maxwellian equilibria (“thickening of tails”) is one of the characteristic features of dynamics of granular systems, and has been an object of intensive study in the recent years .

We remark that the “3/2” bound has rather important practical implications as well. In particular, it indicates that the approximate solutions based on the truncated expansion of the deviation from the Maxwellian into Sonine polynomials  could only be valid for moderate values of $`|v|^2`$. Any conclusions about the tail behavior drawn from such an expansion should be questioned. Indeed, since the deviation function is growing rapidly for $`|v|`$ large (it is in the weighted $`L^1`$ space, but not in $`L^2`$ !), the Sonine polynomial expansion should in general be expected to have poor approximation properties in this region.

The paper is organized as follows. The first section contains the preliminaries, where we introduce the inelastic collision operator and establish several basic identities which are important in the sequel. In section 2 we establish the bounds for the energy and entropy of solutions In Section 3 we study the moments of the distribution function by analyzing the moment inequalities for equations (0.1) and (0.2). The key point in analyzing the moments is the so-called Povzner inequalities, well-known for the classical Boltzmann equation , which we here extend to the case of inelastic interactions and present in a general setting of polynomially increasing convex test functions. In Section 4 we study the estimates of the inelastic collision operator in $`L^p`$ spaces with polynomial weights, extending the results in  to the inelastic hard sphere case. We continue by establishing apriori regularity estimates, based on the interpolation of $`L^p`$ spaces and the Sobolev-type inequalities. In Section 5 we present a rigorous proof of the existence and regularity of the time-dependent and steady solutions. The arguments presented there also justify the formal manipulations performed in Sections 2, 3 and 4. In Section 6 we show the uniqueness for the time-dependent problem using Gronwall’s lemma. Finally, in Section 7 we compute lower bounds for the stationary and time-dependent solutions.

## 1. Preliminaries

### 1.1. Binary inelastic collisions.

We study the dynamics of inelastic identical hard balls with the following law of interactions. Let $`v`$ and $`v_{}`$ be the velocities of two particles before a collision, and denote by $`u=vv_{}`$ their relative velocity. Let the prime symbol denote the same quantities after the collision. Then we assume

(1.1)
$$\begin{array}{cc}& (u^{}n)=\alpha (un),\hfill \\ & u^{}(u^{}n)=u(un),\hfill \end{array}$$

where $`n`$ is the unit vector in the direction of impact, and $`0<\alpha <1`$ is a constant called the coefficient of normal restitution. Setting $`w=v+v_{}`$ and using the momentum conservation we can express $`v^{}`$ and $`v_{}^{}`$ as follows:

(1.2)
$$v^{}=\frac{w}{2}+\frac{u^{}}{2},v_{}^{}=\frac{w}{2}\frac{u^{}}{2},$$

By substituting (1.1) into (1.2) and equations (1.1), the post-collisional velocities $`v^{}`$ and $`v_{}^{}`$ are uniquely determined by the pre-collisional ones, $`v`$ and $`v_{}`$, and the impact parameter $`n`$ (cf. , ).

The geometry of the inelastic collisions defined by relations (1.1), (1.2) is shown in Figure 1. For every $`v`$ and $`v_{}`$ fixed, the sets of possible outcomes for post-collisional velocities are two (distinct) spheres of diameter $`\frac{1+\alpha }{2}|u|`$. Thus, it is convenient to parametrize the relative velocity after collision as follows:

(1.3)
$$u^{}=(1\beta )u+\beta |u|\sigma ,$$

where we denoted $`\beta =\frac{1+\alpha }{2}`$. The relations (1.2) and (1.3) define the post-collisional velocities in terms of $`v`$, $`v_{}`$ and the angular parameter $`\sigma S^{N1}`$.

### 1.2. Weak form of the collision operator.

We define the collision operator by its action on test functions, or observables. Taking $`\psi =\psi (v,t)`$ to be a suitably regular test function, we introduce the following weak bilinear form of the collision term:

(1.4)
$$_^NQ(g,f)\psi 𝑑v=_^N_^N_{S^{N1}}fg_{}(\psi ^{}\psi )|u|b(u,\sigma )𝑑\sigma 𝑑v𝑑v_{}.$$

Here and below we use the shorthand notations $`f=f(v,t)`$, $`g_{}=g(v_{},t)`$, $`\psi ^{}=\psi (v^{},t)`$, etc. The function $`b(u,\sigma )`$ in (1.6) is the product of the Enskog correlation factor $`k(\rho ,d)`$ (which is a constant in the space-homogeneous case) by the differential collision cross-section, expressed in the variables $`u`$, $`\sigma `$. In the case of hard-sphere interactions,

$$b(u,\sigma )=k(\rho ,d)\left(\frac{d}{2}\right)^{N1}\left(\frac{1(\nu \sigma )}{2}\right)^{\frac{N3}{2}},$$

where $`\nu =u/|u|`$, and $`d`$ is the diameter of the particles. Notice that the hard sphere cross-section depends only on the angle between $`u`$ and $`\sigma `$, and is generally anisotropic, unless $`N=3`$. Without restricting generality, by choosing the value of $`d`$ accordingly, we can always assume that

(1.5)
$$_{S^{N1}}b(u,\sigma )𝑑\sigma =1.$$

Of course, to write down the Boltzmann operator we only need $`Q(f,f)`$, but later on it will be sometimes convenient to work with the bilinear form $`Q(g,f)`$. An explicit form of $`Q`$ will be given later on; however for many purposes it will be easier to work with the weak formulation which is also quite natural from the physical point of view (it is analogous to the well-known Maxwell form of the Boltzmann collision operator \[38, Chapter 1, Section 2.3\]).

In the case when $`f=g`$ in (1.4), we can further symmetrize and write

(1.6)
$$_^NQ(f,f)\psi 𝑑v=\frac{1}{2}_^N_^N_{S^{N1}}ff_{}(\psi ^{}+\psi _{}^{}\psi \psi _{})|u|b(u,\sigma )𝑑\sigma 𝑑v𝑑v_{}.$$

Notice that the particular form of the inelastic collision laws enters (1.6) only through the test function $`\psi ^{}`$.

### 1.3. Equations for observables and conservation relations.

Using the weak form (1.6) allows us to study equations for average values of observables given by the functionals of the form $`_^Nf\psi 𝑑v`$. Namely, multiplying equation (0.1) by a test function $`\psi (v,t)`$ and integrating by parts we obtain

(1.7)
$$\begin{array}{c}\hfill \left[_^Nf\psi 𝑑v\right]_{t=0}^{t=T}_0^T_^Nf(_t\psi +\mathrm{\Delta }_v\psi )𝑑v𝑑t=_0^T_^NQ(f,f)\psi 𝑑v𝑑t.\end{array}$$

With the weak form (1.6) of the collision operator, it is easy to verify formally the basic conservation relations that follow from (0.1). Namely, setting $`\psi =1`$ and $`\psi =v_i`$ in (1.7) and assuming that $`_^Nf\psi 𝑑v`$ is differentiable in $`t`$, we obtain the conservation of mass and momentum:

(1.8)
$$\frac{d}{dt}_^Nf\{1,v_1,\mathrm{},v_N\}𝑑v=0.$$

Further, taking $`\psi =|v|^2`$ and computing

(1.9)
$$|v^{}|^2+|v_{}^{}|^2|v|^2|v_{}|^2=\frac{1\alpha ^2}{2}\frac{1(\nu \sigma )}{2}|u|^2,$$

we obtain the following relation for the dissipation of kinetic energy:

(1.10)
$$\frac{d}{dt}_^Nf|v|^2𝑑v=2Nϵ_N\frac{1\alpha ^2}{4}_^N_^Nff_{}|u|^3𝑑v_{}𝑑v,$$

where

$$ϵ_N=_{S^{N1}}\frac{1(\nu \sigma )}{2}b(u,\sigma )𝑑\sigma =\text{const}.$$

Notice that, unlike the no-diffusion case, the kinetic energy is not necessarily a monotone function of time. However, it is not difficult to show using (1.10) (see Section 2) that the kinetic energy remains bounded for all times, provided the initial distribution function has finite energy.

Finally, equation (1.7) allows us to define the concept of solutions of (0.1) which we use throughout the paper. Namely, we say that a function $`f`$ is a weak solution of (0.1) if for every $`T>0`$, $`fL^1([0,T]\times ^N)`$, $`Q(f,f)L^1([0,T]\times ^N)`$ and (1.7) holds for every $`\psi C^1([0,\mathrm{}),C^2(^N))`$ vanishing for $`t>T`$. It can be shown in the usual way that if a weak solution is sufficiently smooth (say, continuously differentiable with respect to time and twice continuously differentiable with respect to velocity) and satisfies suitable decay conditions for large $`|v|`$, then it also is a classical solution.

### 1.4. Entropy identity

Taking in the weak form (1.6) $`\psi =\mathrm{log}f`$ we obtain an interesting identity for the entropy $`_^Nf\mathrm{log}fdv`$. First, we compute

(1.11)
$$\begin{array}{c}\hfill _^NQ(f,f)\mathrm{log}fdv=\frac{1}{2}_^N_^N_{S^{N1}}ff_{}\mathrm{log}\frac{f^{}f_{}^{}}{ff_{}}|u|b(u,\sigma )𝑑\sigma 𝑑v𝑑v_{}\\ \hfill =\frac{1}{2}_^N_^N_{S^{N1}}ff_{}\left(\mathrm{log}\frac{f^{}f_{}^{}}{ff_{}}\frac{f^{}f_{}^{}}{ff_{}}+1\right)|u|b(u,\sigma )𝑑\sigma 𝑑v𝑑v_{}\\ \hfill +\frac{1}{2}_^N_^N_{S^{N1}}(f^{}f_{}^{}ff_{})|u|b(u,\sigma )𝑑\sigma 𝑑v𝑑v_{}.\end{array}$$

The last term vanishes in the elastic case $`\alpha =1`$; however, as we see below, it is generally different from zero if $`\alpha <1`$. To compare the integral of $`f^{}f_{}^{}`$ to that of $`ff_{}`$ we perform the transformation corresponding to the inverse collision, passing from the velocities $`v^{}`$, $`v_{}^{}`$ to their predecessors $`v`$ and $`v_{}`$. Such a transformation is more easily expressed in the variables $`u`$ and $`n`$. Passing to these variables, we can write the integral of $`f^{}f_{}^{}`$ as follows:

(1.12)
$$d^{N1}_^N_^N_{S_+^{N1}}f^{}f_{}^{}|un|𝑑n𝑑v𝑑v_{},$$

where $`S_+^{N1}=\{nS^{N1}|un>0\}`$. The “inverse collision” transformation $`(v,v_{},n)(v^{},v_{}^{},n)`$ has the Jacobian determinant equal to $`\alpha `$ . Therefore, using the first of the equations (1.1), the integral (1.12) is computed as

(1.13)
$$d^{N1}\frac{1}{\alpha ^2}_^N_^N_{S_+^{N1}}ff_{}|un|𝑑n𝑑v𝑑v_{},$$

Changing variables in the angular integral from $`n`$ to $`\sigma `$, we rewrite (1.12) as

(1.14)
$$\frac{1}{\alpha ^2}_^N_^N_{S^{N1}}ff_{}|u|b(u,\sigma )𝑑\sigma 𝑑v𝑑v_{}=\frac{1}{\alpha ^2}_^N_^Nff_{}|u|𝑑v𝑑v_{}.$$

In view of (1.11) and (1.14) the entropy equation becomes

(1.15)
$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \frac{d}{dt}_^Nf\mathrm{log}fdv+4_^N& \left|\sqrt{f}\right|^2dv\hfill \\ \hfill =\frac{1}{2}_^N_^N_{S^{N1}}& ff_{}\left(\mathrm{log}\frac{f^{}f_{}^{}}{ff_{}}\frac{f^{}f_{}^{}}{ff_{}}+1\right)|u|b(u,\sigma )d\sigma dvdv_{}\hfill \\ & +\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{1}{\alpha ^2}1\right)_^N_^Nff_{}|u|𝑑v𝑑v_{}.\hfill \end{array}$$

In these equations as in all the sequel, the symbol $``$ will stand for the gradient operator with respect to velocity variables. Here the first term on the right-hand side is nonpositive (notice the inequality $`\mathrm{log}xx+10`$) and similar to the entropy dissipation in the elastic case. The last term in (1.15) is a nonnegative correction term that vanishes in the elastic limit $`\alpha 1`$.

### 1.5. Similarity in the equations and normalization of solutions.

As a consequence of (1.8), the total density (mass) and momentum (mean value) of the distribution function are equal to those of the initial distribution. We can write this as follows:

$$_^Nf𝑑v=\rho _0=\text{const},\text{and}_^Nfv_i𝑑v=\rho _0v_{0}^{}{}_{i}{}^{}=\text{const}_i,i=1,\mathrm{},N.$$

In fact, we can always assume that $`\rho _0=1`$, $`v_0=0`$ and $`\mu =1`$ in (0.1). Indeed, if $`f(v,t)`$ is such a solution to (0.1), then, for every $`\rho _0`$, $`v_0`$ and $`\mu `$, the function

$$f_{\{\rho _0,v_0,\mu \}}(v,t)=\rho _0\eta ^Nf(t/\tau ,(vv_0)/\eta ),$$

where

$$\tau =\rho _0^{2/3}\mu ^{1/3},\text{and}\eta =\rho _0^{1/3}\mu ^{1/3},$$

is a solution corresponding to the given values of $`\rho _0`$, $`v_0`$ and $`\mu `$.

### 1.6. Strong form of the collision operator.

Using the weak form (1.6) we can derive the usual strong form of the collision operator. We notice the obvious splitting into the “gain” and the “loss” terms,

$$Q(g,f)=Q^+(g,f)Q^{}(g,f).$$

Assuming that $`f`$ is regular enough, setting $`\psi (v)=\delta (vv_0)`$ in the part of (1.6) corresponding to $`Q^{}(g,f)`$, and using (1.5) we find

$$Q^{}(g,f)=_^N_{S^{N1}}fg_{}|u|b(u,\sigma )𝑑\sigma 𝑑v_{}=f(g|v|).$$

To find the explicit form of $`Q^+(g,f)`$ we invoke the inverse collision transformation, tracing the collision history back from the pair $`v`$, $`v_{}`$ to their predecessors, which we denote by $`{}_{}{}^{}v`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{}v_{}^{}`$. Setting $`\psi (v)=\delta (vv_0)`$ and arguing similarly to the derivation of the entropy identity we obtain

$$Q^+(g,f)=_^N_{S^{N1}}^{}f^{}g_{}\frac{1}{\alpha ^2}|u|b(u,\sigma )𝑑\sigma 𝑑v_{},$$

where $`{}_{}{}^{}f=f(^{}v,t)`$, $`{}_{}{}^{}g_{}^{}=g(^{}v_{},t)`$, and the pre-collisional velocities are defined as

(1.16)
$$^{}v=\frac{w}{2}+\frac{{}_{}{}^{}u}{2},^{}v_{}=\frac{w}{2}\frac{{}_{}{}^{}u}{2},\text{where}^{}u=(1\gamma )u+\gamma |u|\sigma ,$$

and $`\gamma =\frac{\alpha +1}{2\alpha }`$.

## 2. Basic Apriori Estimates: Energy and Entropy

In the classical theory of the elastic Boltzmann equation, the energy conservation and the entropy decay are the most fundamental facts which provide the base for every analysis. In the present setting naturally we do not have energy conservation, and the energy inequality (expressing that collisions do not increase the energy) would by no means be sufficient to compensate for that. So the key ingredient will be to replace it by the more precise energy dissipation estimate, as follows.

To study solutions of (0.1) and (0.2) we assume for simplicity that they satisfy the normalization conditions of unit mass and zero average; however the estimates we derive below will be by no means restricted to such solutions. We use the energy equation (1.10) and apply Jensen’s inequality for the last term to get

$$_^Nf_{}|u|^3𝑑v_{}\left|v_^Nf(t,v)v𝑑v\right|^3=|v|^3,$$

and therefore,

$$_^N_^Nff_{}|u|^3𝑑v_{}𝑑v_^Nf|v|^3𝑑v.$$

We then get (in the time-dependent case) the differential inequality

(2.1)
$$\frac{d}{dt}_^Nf|v|^2𝑑v+k_1_^Nf|v|^3𝑑vK_1,$$

where $`K_1=2N`$ and $`k_1=ϵ_N\frac{1\alpha ^2}{4}`$. Further, by Jensen’s inequality,

$$_^Nf|v|^3𝑑v\left(_^Nf|v|^2𝑑v\right)^{3/2},$$

and we obtain

$$\frac{d}{dt}_^Nf|v|^2𝑑vK_1k_1\left(_^Nf|v|^2𝑑v\right)^{3/2}.$$

Thus, if $`_^Nf|v|^2𝑑v>(K_1/k_1)^{2/3}`$, then $`\frac{d}{dt}_^Nf|v|^2𝑑v<0`$ and so,

$$\underset{t0}{sup}_^Nf|v|^2𝑑v\mathrm{max}\{_^Nf_0|v|^2𝑑v,\left(K_1/k_1\right)^{2/3}\}.$$

In the steady case the derivative term drops in (2.1), and we obtain

$$_^Nf|v|^3𝑑v\frac{K_1}{k_1}.$$

Let us introduce the following weighted $`L^1`$ spaces:

(2.2)
$$L_k^1(^N)=\{f|fv^kL^1(^N)\},$$

where $`k0`$ and $`v=(1+|v|^2)^{1/2}`$. We then define the norms in $`L_k^1`$ as $`_^N|f|v^k𝑑v`$, which for $`f`$ nonnegative coincide with the moments $`_^Nfv^k𝑑v`$. The above argument implies apriori estimates for the steady solutions in $`L_3^1(^N)`$, and for the time-dependent ones in $`L^{\mathrm{}}([0,\mathrm{}),L_2^1(^N))`$ and $`L_{\mathrm{loc}}^1([0,\mathrm{}),L_3^1(^N))`$. We emphasize that the bounds depend on $`\alpha `$ and deteriorate in the elastic limit $`\alpha 1`$. In fact, these bounds for $`\alpha <1`$ make a most striking contrast with the classical Boltzmann equation for elastic particles.

Next, using the entropy equation (1.15) we show that the entropy is bounded uniformly in time, for initial data with finite mass, kinetic energy and entropy. To obtain this, we first estimate the second term in (1.15) using the Sobolev embedding inequality: assuming for simplicity here that $`N3`$, we have

$$_^N|\sqrt{f}|^2𝑑vcf_{L^p^{}},$$

where $`p^{}=N/(N2)`$. Further, we have the inequality

(2.3)
$$_^Nf\mathrm{log}fdvC_\epsilon f_{L^p^{}}^\epsilon ,$$

for all $`\epsilon >0`$. Indeed, obviously, for every $`\delta >0`$,

(2.4)
$$_^Nf\mathrm{log}fdvC_\delta _^Nf^{1+\delta }𝑑v.$$

Further, by Hölder’s inequality, for $`\delta <p^{}`$,

$$f_{L^{1+\delta }}f_{L^1}^{1\nu }f_{L^p^{}}^\nu ,$$

where $`\nu =\frac{p^{}\delta }{(p^{}1)(1+\delta )}`$. Therefore,

$$_^Nf^{1+\delta }𝑑vf_{L^p^{}}^{\frac{p^{}}{p^{}1}\delta },$$

which together with (2.4) implies (2.3). Now, coming back to estimating the terms in the entropy equation (1.15), we get

(2.5)
$$\frac{d}{dt}_^Nf\mathrm{log}fdv+c_\epsilon \left(_^Nf\mathrm{log}fdv\right)^{1/\epsilon }Cf_{L_1^1}^2.$$

The established bound in $`L^{\mathrm{}}([0,\mathrm{}),L_2^1(^N))`$ implies that for initial data with finite mass and energy, the right-hand side of (2.5) is bounded by a constant, and we obtain by Gronwall’s lemma,

$$\underset{t0}{sup}_^Nf\mathrm{log}fdvC(_^Nf_0\mathrm{log}f_0dv,f_0_{L_2^1}).$$

Integrating (1.15) in time, we also get $`\sqrt{f}L^2([0,T],H^1(^N)),`$ for every $`T>0`$, which implies in particular, $`fL^p^{}([0,T]\times ^N),`$ where the constants in the estimates depend on the initial mass, energy and entropy of the solutions. For the steady solutions we obtain a particularly simple estimate $`\sqrt{f}_{L^2}Cf_{L_1^1}.`$ As the reader will easily check, our assumption that $`N3`$ is just for convenience, and can easily be circumvented in dimension 2 by the Moser-Trudinger inequality, or just the local control of all $`L^p`$ norms of $`f`$ by $`\sqrt{f}_{L^2}`$, together with a moment-based localization argument.

## 3. Moment inequalities

We further look for apriori estimates of the solutions in the spaces $`L_k^1`$ (2.2) with $`k>2`$. Such estimates will play a very important role in our study of regularity, which we perform in Section 4. The key technique for obtaining the necessary estimates is the so-called Povzner inequalities  which we here extend to the inelastic case.

### 3.1. The Povzner-type inequalities

We take $`\psi (x)`$, $`x>0`$ to be a convex nondecreasing function and look for estimates of the expressions

(3.1)
$$q[\psi ](v,v_{},\sigma )=\psi (|v^{}|^2)+\psi (|v_{}^{}|^2)\psi (|v|^2)\psi (|v_{}|^2)$$

and

(3.2)
$$\overline{q}[\psi ](v,v_{})=_{S^{N1}}(\psi (|v^{}|^2)+\psi (|v_{}^{}|^2)\psi (|v|^2)\psi (|v_{}|^2))b(u,\sigma )𝑑\sigma ,$$

which appear in the weak form of the collision operator (1.6).

Our aim is to treat the cases of

(3.3)
$$\psi (x)=x^p,\text{and}\psi (x)=(1+x)^p1,p>1,$$

and also truncated versions of such functions which will be required in the rigorous analysis of moments in Section 5. Thus, we will require functions $`\psi `$ to satisfy the following list of conditions:

(3.4) $`\psi (x)0,x>0;\psi (0)=0;`$
(3.5) $`\psi (x)\text{is convex,}C^1([0,\mathrm{})),\psi ^{\prime \prime }(x)\text{is locally bounded};`$
(3.6) $`\psi ^{}(ax)\eta _1(a)\psi ^{}(x),x>0,a>1;`$
(3.7) $`\psi ^{\prime \prime }(ax)\eta _2(a)\psi ^{\prime \prime }(x),x>0a>1,`$
where $`\eta _1(a)`$ and $`\eta _2(a)`$ are functions of $`a`$ only, bounded on every finite interval of $`a>0`$. The above conditions are easily verified for the functions (3.3).

We will further establish the following elementary lemma.

###### Lemma 3.1.

Assume that $`\psi (x)`$ satisfies (3.4)–(3.7). Then

(3.8)
$$\psi (x+y)\psi (x)\psi (y)A(x\psi ^{}(y)+y\psi ^{}(x))$$

and

(3.9)
$$\psi (x+y)\psi (x)\psi (y)bxy\psi ^{\prime \prime }(x+y).$$

where $`A=\eta _1(2)`$ and $`b=(2\eta _2(2))^1`$.

###### Proof.

To establish the first of the bounds assume that $`xy`$. Then, since $`\psi (y)0`$,

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \psi (x+y)\psi (x)\psi (y)& \psi (x+y)\psi (x)\hfill \\ & =_0^y\psi ^{}(x+t)𝑑t_0^y\eta _1(2)\psi ^{}(x)𝑑t=Ay\psi ^{}(x),\hfill \end{array}$$

By symmetry we have

$$\psi (x+y)\psi (x)\psi (y)Ax\psi ^{}(y),$$

when $`xy`$. This proves the required inequality for all $`x`$ and $`y`$. To prove the second of the bounds in the lemma, we can write, using (3.7) and the normalization $`\psi (0)=0`$,

$$\begin{array}{c}\hfill \psi (x+y)\psi (x)\psi (y)=_0^y(\psi ^{}(x+t)\psi ^{}(t))𝑑t=_0^y_0^x\psi ^{\prime \prime }(t+\tau )𝑑\tau 𝑑t\\ \hfill (\eta _2(2))^1\psi ^{\prime \prime }(x+y)_0^y_0^x\chi _{\{t+\tau >(x+y)/2\}}𝑑\tau 𝑑t=(2\eta _2(2))^1xy\psi ^{\prime \prime }(x+y).\end{array}$$

This completes the proof. ∎

In the sequel, we shall use some relations involving post-collisional velocities $`v^{}`$ and $`v_{}^{}`$. It becomes more convenient to parametrize them in the center of mass–relative velocity variables. We therefore set

(3.10)
$$\begin{array}{c}\hfill v^{}=\frac{w+\lambda |u|\omega }{2},\text{and}v_{}^{}=\frac{w\lambda |u|\omega }{2},\end{array}$$

where $`w=v+v_{}`$, $`u=vv_{}`$, and $`\omega `$ is a parameter vector on the sphere $`S^{N1}`$ (see Figure 1). We have

$$\lambda \omega =\beta \sigma +(1\beta )\nu ,$$

where $`\beta =\frac{1+\alpha }{2}`$ and $`\nu =u/|u|`$, and therefore,

(3.11)
$$\lambda =\lambda (\mathrm{cos}\chi )=(1\beta )\mathrm{cos}\chi +\sqrt{(1\beta )^2(\mathrm{cos}^2\chi 1)+\beta ^2},$$

where $`\chi `$ is the angle between $`u`$ and $`\omega `$. Notice that

$$0<\alpha \lambda (\mathrm{cos}\chi )1,$$

for all $`\chi `$. With this parametrization we have

(3.12)
$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill |v^{}|^2& =\frac{|w|^2+\lambda ^2|u|^2+2\lambda |u||w|\mathrm{cos}\mu }{4},\hfill \\ \hfill |v_{}^{}|^2& =\frac{|w|^2+\lambda ^2|u|^22\lambda |u||w|\mathrm{cos}\mu }{4},\hfill \end{array}$$

where $`\mu `$ is the angle between the vectors $`w=v+v_{}`$ and $`\omega `$.

###### Lemma 3.2.

Assume that the function $`\psi `$ satisfies (3.4)–(3.7). Then we have

$$q[\psi ]=n[\psi ]+p[\psi ],$$

where

$$p[\psi ]A(|v|^2\psi ^{}(|v_{}|^2)+|v_{}|^2\psi ^{}(|v|^2))$$

and

$$n[\psi ]\kappa (\lambda ,\mu )(|v|^2+|v_{}|^2)^2\psi ^{\prime \prime }(|v|^2+|v_{}|^2).$$

Here $`A`$ is the constant in estimate (3.8),

$$\kappa (\lambda ,\mu )=\frac{b}{4}\lambda ^2(\eta _2(\lambda ^2))^1\mathrm{sin}^2\mu ,$$

and $`b`$ is the constant in estimate (3.9).

###### Proof.

We start by setting

$$p[\psi ]=\psi (|v|^2+|v_{}|^2)\psi (|v|^2)\psi (|v_{}|^2)$$

and

$$n[\psi ]=\psi (|v|^2+|v_{}|^2)\psi (|v^{}|^2)\psi (|v_{}^{}|^2).$$

The estimate for $`p[\psi ]`$ follows easily by (3.8). It remains to verify the lower bound for $`n[\psi ]`$. For this we use (3.9), noticing that $`\psi `$ is monotone and that $`|v|^2+|v_{}|^2|v^{}|^2+|v_{}^{}|^2`$. We then obtain:

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill n[\psi ]& \psi (|v^{}|^2+|v_{}^{}|^2)\psi (|v^{}|^2)\psi (|v_{}^{}|^2)\hfill \\ & b|v^{}|^2|v_{}^{}|^2\psi ^{\prime \prime }(|v^{}|^2+|v_{}^{}|^2)\hfill \\ & =b\zeta (v^{},v_{}^{})(|v^{}|^2+|v_{}^{}|^2)^2\psi ^{\prime \prime }(|v^{}|^2+|v_{}^{}|^2),\hfill \end{array}$$

where

$$\zeta (v^{},v_{}^{})=\frac{|v^{}|^2}{|v^{}|^2+|v_{}^{}|^2}\frac{|v_{}^{}|^2}{|v^{}|^2+|v_{}^{}|^2}.$$

Further, using (3.12), we get

$$\zeta (v^{},v_{}^{})=\frac{1}{4}\left(1\frac{4\lambda ^2|u|^2|w|^2}{(\lambda ^2|u|^2+|w|^2)^2}\mathrm{cos}^2\mu \right)\frac{1}{4}(1\mathrm{cos}^2\mu )=\frac{1}{4}\mathrm{sin}^2\mu .$$

Finally, noticing that

$$|v^{}|^2+|v_{}^{}|^2=\frac{\lambda ^2|u|^2+|w|^2}{2}\lambda ^2\frac{|u|^2+|w|^2}{2}=\lambda ^2(|v|^2+|v_{}|^2).$$

we obtain

$$n[\psi ]\frac{b}{4}\lambda ^2(\eta _2(\lambda ^2))^1\mathrm{sin}^2\mu (|v|^2+|v_{}|^2)^2\psi ^{\prime \prime }(|v|^2+|v_{}|^2).$$

This completes the proof of the lemma. ∎

Lemma 3.2 gives us the basic formulation of the Povzner inequality for the considered class of test functions $`\psi `$. In the example $`\psi (x)=x^p`$ we have $`p[\psi ]C(|v|^2|v_{}|^{2p2}+|v_{}|^2|v|^{2p2})`$ and $`n[\psi ]c(|v|^{2p}+|v_{}|^{2p})`$, outside the set where $`\kappa (\lambda ,\mu )`$ is small (which amounts to a small set of angles). This implies that that the nonpositive term $`n[\psi ]`$ is dominating, at least when $`|v|>>|v_{}|`$ or $`|v_{}|>>|v|`$, which are the most important regions of integration from the point of view of calculation of moments (cf. also ). We can further simplify the inequalities and get rid of the dependence on the angular variables, by integration with respect to $`\sigma S^{N1}`$. We then obtain the following lemma.

###### Lemma 3.3.

Assume that the function $`\psi `$ satisfies (3.4)–(3.7). Then

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \overline{q}[\psi ]k(|v|^2+|v_{}|^2)^2\psi ^{\prime \prime }(|v|^2& +|v_{}|^2)+A(|v|^2\psi ^{}(|v_{}|^2)+|v_{}|^2\psi ^{}(|v|^2)).\hfill \end{array}$$

where the constant $`A`$ is as in Lemma 3.2, and $`k>0`$ is a constant that depends on the function $`\psi `$ but not on $`\alpha `$.

###### Proof.

For the proof we notice that $`\lambda (\mathrm{cos}\chi )`$ is pointwise decreasing as $`\alpha 0`$ and so,

$$\lambda (\mathrm{cos}\chi )\mathrm{cos}\chi ,\text{for}\mathrm{cos}\chi >0,$$

for all $`\alpha >0`$. We then denote $`\mathrm{cos}\theta =(\nu \sigma )`$, $`b_0(\mathrm{cos}\theta )=b(u,\sigma )`$, and estimate the integral

(3.13)
$$_{S^{N1}}\kappa (\lambda ,\mu )b_0(\mathrm{cos}\theta )𝑑\sigma _{\{\mathrm{cos}\chi >\epsilon _0,\mathrm{sin}\mu >\epsilon _1,\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}1}\mathrm{cos}\theta >\epsilon _2\}}\kappa (\lambda ,\mu )b_0(\mathrm{cos}\theta )𝑑\sigma ,$$

setting $`\epsilon _0`$, $`\epsilon _1`$ and $`\epsilon _2`$ small enough. The integrand on the right-hand side of (3.13) is bounded below by a constant, and so is the area of the domain of integration. (The verification of the last statement for the condition $`\mathrm{sin}\mu >\epsilon _1`$ is somewhat tedious and is achieved by changing the variables of integration from $`\omega `$ to $`\sigma `$: we omit the technical details). We therefore find that the integral (3.13) is bounded below by a constant $`k>0`$, independent on $`\alpha `$. The rest of the claim is easy to verify. ∎

Finally, we present estimates for the integral expression (3.2) multiplied by the relative speed, in the cases when $`\psi (x)`$ is given by one of the functions (3.3).

###### Lemma 3.4.

Take $`p>1`$ and $`\psi (x)=x^p`$. Then

$$|u|\overline{q}[\psi ](v,v_{})k_p(|v|^{2p+1}+|v_{}|^{2p+1})+A_p(|v||v_{}|^{2p}+|v|^{2p}|v_{}|).$$

Also, take $`\psi (x)=(1+x)^p1`$, then

$$|u|\overline{q}[\psi ](v,v_{})k_p(v^{2p+1}+v_{}^{2p+1})+A_p(vv_{}^{2p}+v^{2p}v_{}).$$

Here the constants $`k_p`$ and $`A_p`$ are independent on the restitution coefficient $`\alpha `$.

###### Proof.

We use Lemma 3.3 and the inequalities

$$||v||v_{}|||u|=|vv_{}||v|+|v_{}|.$$

Then in the case $`\psi (x)=x^p`$ the bounds have the form

$$p(p1)k_p|u|(|v|^2+|v_{}|^2)^p+pA_p|u|(|v|^2|v_{}|^{2p2}+|v|^{2p2}|v_{}|^2).$$

The terms appearing with the negative sign are estimated using the inequality

$$|u|(|v|^2+|v_{}|^2)^p\frac{1}{2}(|v|^{2p+1}+|v|^{2p+1})\frac{1}{2}(|v||v_{}|^{2p}+|v|^{2p}|v_{}|).$$

For the remaining terms we have

$$|u|(|v|^2|v_{}|^{2p2}+|v|^{2p2}|v_{}|^2)C_p(|v||v_{}|^{2p}+|v|^{2p}|v_{}|),$$

which completes the proof of the first part of the lemma. The case $`\psi (x)=(1+x)^p1`$ can be treated by arguing along the same lines, by using the inequalities

$$(|v|^2+|v_{}|^2)^2\frac{1}{2}(1+|v|^2+|v_{}|^2)^21$$

and $`|v|(1+|v|^2)^{1/2}1.`$

### 3.2. Estimates for higher-order moments

The Povzner-type inequalities of Lemma 3.4 allow us to study the topics of propagation and appearance of moments. We find that results known for the classical Boltzmann equation with “hard-forces” interactions  transfer to present case. We introduce the notation

$$Y_s(t)=_^Nfv^s𝑑v,$$

and denote by $`\overline{Y}_s`$ the corresponding steady moment.

###### Lemma 3.5.

Let $`f`$ be a sufficiently regular and rapidly decaying solution of (0.1). Then, the following differential inequality holds:

(3.14)
$$\frac{d}{dt}Y_s+2k_sY_{s+1}K_s(Y_s+Y_{s2})$$

where $`K_s`$ and $`k_s`$ are positive constants. Further,

$$\underset{t>0}{sup}Y_s(t)Y_s^{}=\mathrm{max}\{Y_s(0),\left(K_s/k_s\right)^s\},$$

and for every $`\tau >0`$

(3.15)
$$_0^\tau Y_{s+1}(t)𝑑t\frac{K_s\tau +1/2}{k_s}Y_s^{}.$$

Finally, for the steady equation (0.2) we obtain the apriori estimate

$$\overline{Y}_{s+1}\frac{K_s}{2k_s}(\overline{Y}_s+\overline{Y}_{s2}).$$

###### Proof of Lemma 3.5..

Using the weak form of equation(0.1) with $`\psi (v)=v^s`$ we find

(3.16)
$$\frac{d}{dt}_^Nfv^s𝑑v_^N\mathrm{\Delta }fv^s𝑑v=_^NQ(f,f)v^s𝑑v.$$

Estimating the moments of the collision integral according to Lemma 3.4 we get

$$_^NQ(f,f)v^s𝑑v2k_sY_{s+1}+2A_sY_1Y_s.$$

The moments of the Laplacian term are computed as follows:

(3.17)
$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill _^Nf\mathrm{\Delta }v^s𝑑v=_^N& f((s(s2)+sN)v^{s2}s(s2)v^{s4})dv\hfill \\ & =(s(s2)+sN)Y_{s2}s(s2)Y_{s4}.\hfill \end{array}$$

Combining (3.16) and (3.17) and neglecting the non-positive $`Y_{s4}`$ term, we obtain inequality (3.14) with $`K_s=\mathrm{max}\{2A_s,s(s2)+sN\}`$.

To obtain a uniform bound for $`Y_s(t)`$, we use Jensen’s inequality to write

$$Y_{s+1}(Y_s)^{(s+1)/s}.$$

Then we find, estimating the right-hand side of (3.14) by $`2K_sY_s`$,

$$\frac{d}{dt}Y_s2k_s(Y_s)^{(s+1)/s}+2K_sY_s.$$

Thus, $`Y_s^{}(t)<0`$ if $`Y_s>(K_s/k_s)^s`$, and so, the upper bound for $`sup_{t>0}Y_s(t)`$ must hold.

Further, integrating in time we obtain

$$2k_s_0^\tau Y_{s+1}2K_s\tau Y_s^{}Y(s)+Y(0)(2K_s\tau +1)Y_s^{},$$

which proves (3.15).

Finally, the last inequality is obtained by the same arguments as (3.14) applied to the steady equation. ∎

Based on the Lemma just proven we can make the following conclusions about the behavior of the moments of the solutions. First, if a moment $`Y_s`$ is finite initially, it propagates, that is, it remains bounded for the whole time-evolution. Further, the integral condition on $`Y_{s+1}`$ implies the appearance of moments of order $`s+1`$: these moments become finite after arbitrarily short time, even if they are initially infinite (cf. ). Indeed, suppose that $`Y_{s+1}(0)=+\mathrm{}`$, then for every $`\tau >0`$ there is a $`t_0<\tau `$ such that $`Y_{s+1}(t_0)<+\mathrm{}`$. Then, applying the Lemma to $`Y_{s+1}`$, starting with $`t=t_0`$, we obtain that for every $`t_0>0`$,

$$\underset{t>t_0}{sup}Y_{s+1}(t)C_{t_0,s},$$

which implies the above statement. The last part of the Lemma implies an important statement concerning the moments of the steady solution: on the formal level, every solution that has a finite moment of order $`s>2`$ has finite moments of all positive orders. In fact, in view of the $`L_3^1(^N)`$ estimate of the previous section, this implies that every solution with finite mass should have this property.

## 4. $`L^p`$ bounds and apriori regularity

In this section we study the apriori regularity of solutions to (0.1) and (0.2). The presence of the diffusion term in the equation makes it plausible that solutions to the steady equation should be smooth, and those for the time-dependent equation should gain smoothness after arbitrarily short time. However, to realize this idea we need to make use of the particular structure of the collision term. As we will see below, the moment bounds of the previous section will also be of crucial importance. We start by establishing the bounds for the collision operator in the spaces $`L^p`$ with a polynomial weight, extending the results well-known in the case of the classical Boltzmann equation, and first derived by Gustafsson . Below, we shall establish these bounds by adapting the simple strategy that was suggested in \[38, Chapter 2, Section 3.3\] and later developed in  to establish improved $`L^p`$ bounds in the elastic case.

### 4.1. $`L^p`$ bounds for the collision operator

We will use the following weighted $`L^p`$ spaces:

$$L_k^p(^N)=\{f|fv^kL^p(^N)\},$$

where $`v=(1+|v|^2)^{1/2}`$. The necessity to introduce a weight comes from the presence of the factor $`|u|`$ in the hard sphere collision term (1.6). The collision operator is generally unbounded on $`L^p`$: in order to control its norm we will invoke the $`L_k^p`$ norms with higher powers of $`v`$. The precise formulation of this statement is given in next lemma.

###### Lemma 4.1.

For every $`1p\mathrm{}`$ and every $`k0`$,

$$Q(g,f)_{L_k^p}C\left(g_{L_{k+1}^p}f_{L_{k+1}^1}+g_{L_{k+1}^1}f_{L_{k+1}^p}\right),$$

where $`C`$ is a constant depending on $`p`$, $`k`$ and $`N`$ only.

###### Proof.

We fix an exponent $`1p\mathrm{}`$. It is easy to estimate the “loss” part $`Q^{}(g,f)=(g|v|)f`$, using the inequality

$$|g|v||g_{L_1^1}v,$$

from which it follows

(4.1)
$$Q^{}(g,f)_{L_k^p}g_{L_1^1}f_{L_{k+1}^p}.$$

We now turn to estimate the $`Q^+`$ term: starting from the weak form (1.6), we find

(4.2)
$$\begin{array}{c}\hfill Q^+(g,f)v^k_{L^p}=\underset{\psi _{L^p^{}}=1}{sup}_^NQ^+(g,f)\psi v^k𝑑v.\\ \hfill =\underset{\psi _{L^p^{}}=1}{sup}_^N_^Nfg_{}|u|_{S^{N1}}\psi ^{}v^{}^kb(u,\sigma )𝑑\sigma 𝑑v𝑑v_{}.\end{array}$$

By using the inequalities $`|u|v+v_{}`$ and $`v^{}^k(v+v_{})^k`$ the integral (4.2) is bounded as

(4.3)
$$_^N_^Nfg_{}(v+v_{})^{k+1}_{S^{N1}}\psi ^{}b(u,\sigma )𝑑\sigma 𝑑v𝑑v_{}.$$

We now see that the problem comes down to estimating the integral

$$S[\psi ](v,v_{})=_{S^{N1}}\psi ^{}b(u,\sigma )𝑑\sigma $$

in either $`L^{\mathrm{}}(_v^N,L^p^{}(_v_{}^N))`$ or $`L^{\mathrm{}}(_v_{}^N,L^p^{}(_v^N))`$. In fact, we split $`S[\psi ]`$ into two parts $`S_+[\psi ]`$ and $`S_{}[\psi ]`$ and prove the bounds for each of the parts in the respective spaces. We set

$$S_\pm [\psi ](v,v_{})=_{\{\pm u\sigma >0\}}\psi ^{}b(u,\sigma )𝑑\sigma $$

and establish the bounds for $`S_+`$ and $`S_{}`$ in the following proposition.

###### Proposition 4.2.

The operators

$$\begin{array}{cc}& S_+:L^q(^N)L^{\mathrm{}}(_v^N,L^q(_v_{}^N)),\hfill \\ & S_{}:L^q(^N)L^{\mathrm{}}(_v_{}^N,L^q(_v^N)),\hfill \end{array}$$

are bounded for every $`1q\mathrm{}`$.

###### Proof.

We prove the $`L^q`$ bounds by interpolation between $`L^{\mathrm{}}`$ and $`L^1`$. The $`L^{\mathrm{}}`$ estimates are clear due to the boundedness of the domain of integration. To check the $`L^1`$ bounds we assume without loss of generality that $`\psi 0`$ and calculate the $`L^1`$ norms as follows:

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill S_{}[\psi ](v,v_{})_{L^1(_v_{}^N)}=& _^N_{\{u\sigma <0\}}\psi \left(v+\frac{\beta }{2}\left(u+|u|\sigma \right)\right)b(u,\sigma )𝑑\sigma 𝑑u\hfill \\ \hfill =& _^N\psi (v+z)_{S^{N1}}\frac{b(u(z,\sigma ),\sigma )\chi _{\{(\sigma u(z,\sigma ))<0\}}}{|J_{}(u(z,\sigma ),\sigma )|}𝑑\sigma 𝑑z.\hfill \end{array}$$

Here, $`z=v^{}v=\frac{\beta }{2}\left(u+|u|\sigma \right),`$ and $`J_{}(u,\sigma )`$ is the Jacobian of the transformation $`uz`$ (for fixed $`\sigma `$):

$$J_{}(u,\sigma )=\left(\frac{\beta }{2}\right)^N\left(1+\frac{(u\sigma )}{|u|}\right),$$

The condition $`u\sigma <0`$ ensures that $`|J_{}|`$ is bounded below by $`\left(\frac{\beta }{2}\right)^N`$, and then,

$$S_{}[\psi ](v,v_{})_{L^1(_v_{}^N)}\left(\frac{\beta }{2}\right)^N_{S^{N1}}b(u,\sigma )𝑑\sigma \psi _{L^1}=\left(\frac{\beta }{2}\right)^N\psi _{L^1},$$

for every $`v^N`$.

Similarly, for the $`S_+`$ term we have

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill S_+[\psi ](v,v_{})_{L^1(_v^N)}=& _^N_{\{u\sigma >0\}}\psi \left(v_{}+\frac{1}{2}\left((2\beta )u+\beta |u|\sigma \right)\right)b(u,\sigma )𝑑\sigma 𝑑u\hfill \\ \hfill =& _^N\psi (v+z)_{S^{N1}}\frac{b(u(z,\sigma ),\sigma )\chi _{\{(\sigma u(z,\sigma ))>0\}}}{|J_+(u(z,\sigma ),\sigma )|}𝑑\sigma 𝑑z,\hfill \end{array}$$

where now $`z=v^{}v_{}=\frac{1}{2}((2\beta ))u+\beta |u|\sigma ),`$ and

$$J_+(u,\sigma )=\left(\frac{2\beta }{2}\right)^N\left(1+\frac{\beta }{2\beta }\frac{(u\sigma )}{|u|}\right).$$

Then, since $`(u\sigma )>0`$, we can argue similarly to the previous case to obtain

$$S_+[\psi ](v,v_{})_{L^1(_v^N)}\left(\frac{2\beta }{2}\right)^N\psi _{L^1},$$

uniformly in $`v_{}^N`$. The statement of the proposition now follows by the Marcinkiewicz interpolation theorem. ∎

End of proof of Lemma 4.1.  Combining the bound (4.3) with the ones proven in Proposition 4.2 we find

$$\begin{array}{cc}& _^NQ(g,f)\psi 𝑑v\hfill \\ & _^N_^Nfg_{}(v+v_{})^{k+1}\left(S_+[\psi ](v,v_{})+S_{}[\psi ](v,v_{})\right)𝑑v𝑑v_{}\hfill \\ & C_k_^Ng_{}_^Nf(v^{k+1}+v_{}^{k+1})S_+[\psi ](v,v_{})𝑑v𝑑v_{}\hfill \\ & +C_k_^Nf_^Ng_{}(v^{k+1}+v_{}^{k+1})S_{}[\psi ](v,v_{})𝑑v_{}𝑑v\hfill \\ & C\left(g_{L^1}f_{L_{k+1}^p}+g_{L_{k+1}^1}f_{L^p}+f_{L^1}g_{L_{k+1}^p}+f_{L_{k+1}^1}g_{L^p}\right).\hfill \end{array}$$

since $`\psi _{L^p^{}}=1`$. From this the conclusion of the lemma follows easily. ∎

### 4.2. $`H^1`$ regularity: Steady state equation

We start by establishing apriori estimates for solutions to the steady equation (0.2), for which the analysis is performed in a rather more direct way than for the time-dependent problem. We first show the bounds in the Sobolev spaces with the weight $`v^k=(1+|v|^2)^{k/2}`$:

$$H_k^1(^N)=\{fL_k^2(^N)|fL_k^2(^N)\}.$$

The main tools are the coercivity of the diffusion part, the estimates of the collision operator in $`L^p`$, and the interpolation inequalities for $`L^p`$ spaces. The constants in the estimates are expressed in terms of the $`L^1`$ moments. In all this section, we shall assume for simplicity that $`N3`$, but there is no difficulty to adapt the proofs to cover the case $`N=2`$ as well. We begin with an estimate for the gradient in $`L^2`$.

###### Lemma 4.3.

Assume that the function $`fH^1(^N)L_r^1(^N)`$, where $`r=\frac{N+2}{4}`$, is a solution of (0.2). Then

$$f_{L^2}CAB^r,$$

where

$$A=f_{L_r^1},B=f_{L_1^1},$$

and $`C`$ is a constant depending on the dimension.

###### Proof.

Multiplying equation (0.2) by $`f`$, integrating and applying Hölder’s inequality yields

(4.4)
$$_^N|f|^2𝑑v=_^NQ(f,f)f𝑑vCf_{L^p}Q(f,f)_{L^p^{}},$$

for all $`1p\mathrm{}`$. We choose $`p=2^{}=2N/(N2)`$, where $`2^{}`$ is the critical Sobolev exponent, and apply the Sobolev’s embedding inequality

(4.5)
$$f_{L^2^{}}Cf_{L^2}$$

(Note: for $`N=3`$, $`2^{}=6`$ and $`(2^{})^{}=6/5`$.) Then, by Lemma 4.1,

(4.6)
$$Q(f,f)_{L^{(2^{})^{}}}Cf_{L_1^{(2^{})^{}}}f_{L_1^1}.$$

To estimate $`f_{L_1^{(2^{})^{}}}`$ we use the following interpolation inequality for weighted $`L^p`$ norms ($`\phi `$ is any weight function), which can be easily verified using Hölder’s inequality:

(4.7)
$$f\phi ^k_{L^q}f\phi ^{k_1}_{L^{q_1}}^\nu f\phi ^{k_2}_{L^{q_2}}^{1\nu },$$

where

$$\frac{\nu }{q_1}+\frac{1\nu }{q_2}=\frac{1}{q}\mathrm{and}k_1\nu +k_2(1\nu )=k.$$

Now, interpolating the norm in $`L_1^q`$ for $`q=(2^{})^{}`$ between $`q_1=2^{}`$ and $`q_2=1`$, we get

(4.8)
$$f_{L_1^{(2^{})^{}}}f_{L^2^{}}^\nu f_{L_r^1}^{1\nu }$$

where $`\nu `$ and $`r`$ are determined from the following equations:

$$\frac{\nu }{2^{}}+\frac{1\nu }{1}=\frac{1}{(2^{})^{}}\text{and}r\left(1\nu \right)=1,$$

so that

(4.9)
$$\nu =\frac{N2}{N+2}\text{and}r=\frac{1}{1\nu }=\frac{N+2}{4}.$$

Combining estimates (4.4)–(4.8) we obtain the inequality

(4.10)
$$\begin{array}{c}\hfill f_{L^2}^2Cf_{L_1^1}f_{L_r^1}^{1\nu }f_{L^2}^{1+\nu }CBA^{1\nu }f_{L^2}^{1+\nu },\end{array}$$

from which the conclusion of the lemma follows. ∎

The result of the Lemma implies a bound for the solutions in the space $`H^1(^N)`$. Indeed, by the Sobolev embedding,

$$f_{L^2^{}}CAB^r.$$

Interpolating between $`L^1`$ and $`L^2^{}`$ using inequality (4.7) we get a bound for the $`L^2`$ norm, which then implies a bound in $`H^1`$. Since the constants in the estimates depend on the $`L_k^1`$ norms only, and the latter are controlled by the moments bounds, we gain an apriori control of the $`H^1`$ norm by means of the mass and the energy only. We next see that the derivatives of the solutions have an appropriate decay, so even $`L_k^2`$ norms for all $`k0`$ are bounded.

###### Lemma 4.4.

Let $`f`$ be a solution of equation (0.2) and assume that $`fH_k^1(^N)L_{(k+1)r}^1(^N)`$, where $`k0`$ and $`r=\frac{N+2}{4}`$. Then

$$(fv^k)_{L^2}C\left(A_1A_2^r+k^{2r}A_3\right),$$

where

$$A_1=f_{L_{(k+1)r}^1},A_2=f_{L_{k+1}^1},A_3=f_{L_{k2/r}^1},$$

and $`C`$ is a constant depending on the dimension $`N`$.

###### Proof.

Integrating equation (0.2) against $`fv^{2k}`$ we obtain

(4.11)
$$_^Nf(fv^{2k})dv=_^NQ(f,f)fv^{2k}𝑑v.$$

Using estimates from the previous lemma, the right-hand side can be bounded above as follows:

(4.12)
$$\begin{array}{cc}& Q(f,f)v^k_{L^{(2^{})^{}}}fv^k_{L^2}\hfill \\ \\ & Cfv^{k+1}_{L^{(2^{})^{}}}fv^{k+1}_{L^1}fv^k_{L^2^{}}.\hfill \end{array}$$

Interpolating as in (4.7) we find

(4.13)
$$\begin{array}{c}\hfill fv^{k+1}_{L^{(2^{})^{}}}f_{L^2}^\nu f_{L_{(k+1)r}^1}^{1\nu },\end{array}$$

where $`\nu `$ and $`r`$ are as defined in (4.9). Therefore, combining (4.12) with (4.13) we bound the right hand side of (4.11) by

(4.14)
$$\begin{array}{cc}& C\left(f_{L_{(k+1)r}^1}^{1\nu }f_{L_{k+1}^1}\right)fv^k_{L^2}^{1+\nu }\hfill \\ & CA_1^{1\nu }A_2(fv^k)_{L^2}^{1+\nu }.\hfill \end{array}$$

The integral on the left-hand side of (4.11) is estimated as follows:

(4.15)
$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill _^Nf(fv^{2k})dv=_^N|& (fv^k)|^2dv_^Nf^2|v^k|^2dv\hfill \\ & (fv^k)_{L^2}^2k^2f_{L_{k1}^2}^2.\hfill \end{array}$$

Further, interpolating the $`L_{k1}^2`$ norm between $`L^2^{}`$ and $`L^1`$ we get

$$\begin{array}{c}\hfill fv^{k1}_{L^2}Cfv^k_{L^2}^\lambda fv^{k_2}_{L^1}^{1\lambda }C(fv^k)_{L^2}^\lambda f_{L_{k_2}^1}^{1\lambda },\end{array}$$

where

(4.16)
$$\frac{\lambda }{2^{}}+\frac{1\lambda }{1}=\frac{1}{2},\text{so that}\lambda =\frac{N}{N+2}=\frac{1+\nu }{2},$$

and

$$k1=\lambda k+(1\lambda )k_2,\text{so that}k_2=k\frac{1}{1\lambda }=k2/r.$$

Gathering the above inequalities and noticing that $`2\lambda =1+\nu `$ we obtain:

$$(fv^k)_{L^2}^2C\left(A_1^{1\nu }A_2+k^2A_3^{1\nu }\right)(fv^k)_{L^2}^{1+\nu }.$$

Dividing by the norm of the gradient to the power $`1+\nu `$ we get

$$(fv^k)_{L^2}\left(CA_1^{1\nu }A_2+k^2A_3^{1\nu }\right)^{\frac{1}{1\nu }}.$$

Noticing that $`\frac{1}{1\nu }=r`$ and using the inequality $`(x+y)^rC_r(x^r+y^r)`$ we arrive at the conclusion of the lemma. ∎

Using the Lemma just proven we find bounds for solutions $`f`$ in $`H_k^1`$ for every $`k0`$. Indeed, using the inequality

$$|(f)v^k|^2C(|(fv^k)|^2+|fv^k|^2)$$

and interpolating in the second term between $`L^2^{}`$ and $`L_{k2/r}^1`$ we get

$$f_{L_k^2}^2C\left((fv^k)_{L^2}^2+(fv^k)_{L^2}^{1+\nu }f_{L_{k2/r}^1}^{1\nu }\right),$$

from which an estimate in terms of the $`L^1`$ moments follows. Further, by interpolation inequality (4.7),

$$f_{L_k^2}f_{L^2^{}}^\lambda f_{L_{k/(1\lambda )}^1}^{1\lambda },$$

and so, in view of our earlier remarks, the norm in $`L_k^2`$ is also estimated in terms of $`L^1`$ moments only. Summarizing the results obtained so far, the solutions are controlled apriori in $`H_k^1(^N)`$ for any $`k0`$ in terms of mass and kinetic energy only.

### 4.3. Schwartz class regularity: Steady problem

Our next aim is now to establish a priori bounds for solutions to (0.2) in the spaces

$$H_k^n(^N)=\{fL_k^2(^N)|^mfL_k^2(^N),\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}1}mn\},$$

for all $`1n<\mathrm{}`$ and all $`0k<\mathrm{}`$. We use induction on $`n`$, differentiating the equation in $`v`$ in each step. The base of the induction is given by Lemma 4.4. We recall the following rule for differentiating the collision integral.

###### Proposition 4.5.

Let $`f`$ and $`g`$ be smooth, rapidly decaying functions of $`v`$. Then

$$Q(g,f)=Q(g,f)+Q(g,f).$$

###### Proof.

We use the splitting into the “gain” and “loss” terms, $`Q(g,f)=Q^+(g,f)Q^{}(g,f)`$. Since $`Q^{}(g,f)=f(g|v|)`$, the differentiation rule for the “loss” term is obvious. To prove the proposition for the “gain” term $`Q^+(g,f)`$ we represent it as follows, using (1.16):

$$Q^+(g,f)=_^N_{S^{N1}}f\left(v+\frac{{}_{}{}^{}uu}{2}\right)g\left(v\frac{{}_{}{}^{}u+u}{2}\right)\frac{1}{\alpha ^2}|u|b(u,\sigma )𝑑\sigma 𝑑u.$$

Since $`{}_{}{}^{}u`$ is a function of $`u`$ and $`\sigma `$ only, the statement follows by differentiation under the integral sign. ∎

###### Remark.

The above statement is in fact a corollary of the following abstract statement which can be proven very easily: Let $`Q`$ be a bilinear operator commuting with translations, continuously differentiable; then $`Q(g,f)=Q(f,g)+Q(f,g)`$. Thus, the differentiation formula of Proposition 4.5 can be seen as a consequence of the translation invariance of $`Q`$.

As a direct corollary of Proposition 4.5, higher-order derivatives of $`Q`$ can be calculated using the following Leibniz formula:

$$^jQ(g,f)=\underset{0lj}{}\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{j}{l}\right)Q(^{jl}g,^lf),$$

where $`j`$ and $`l`$ are multi-indices $`j=(j_1\mathrm{}j_N)`$, and $`l=(l_1\mathrm{}l_N)`$;

$$^j=_{v_1}^{j_1}\mathrm{}_{v_N}^{j_N},$$

and $`\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{j}{l}\right)`$ are the multinomial coefficients. Thus, for every multi-index $`j`$, by formal differentiation of (0.2) we obtain the following equations for higher-order derivatives:

(4.17)
$$\mathrm{\Delta }^jf=\underset{0lj}{}\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{j}{l}\right)Q(^{jl}g,^lf).$$

By applying the methods developed in Lemmas 4.3 and 4.4 to equation (4.17) we arrive at the following result.

###### Lemma 4.6.

Let $`f`$ be a solution to (0.2), such that $`fH_{k+\mu }^{n+1}(^N)`$, with $`n0`$, $`k0`$ and $`\mu >1+\frac{N}{2}`$. Then

$$\begin{array}{c}\hfill ^{n+1}f_{L_k^2}C(1+k+f_{H_{k+\mu }^{n1}})(1+^nf_{L_{k+\mu }^2}),\end{array}$$

where $`C`$ is a constant depending on $`n`$ and $`N`$ only.

###### Proof.

Taking a multi-index $`j`$ with $`|j|=n`$, multiplying equation (4.17) by $`^jfv^{2k}`$ and integrating by parts we obtain:

(4.18)
$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill _^N^jf& (^jfv^{2k})dv\hfill \\ & =\underset{0lj}{}\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{j}{l}\right)_^NQ(^{jl}f,^lf)^jfv^{2k}dv.\hfill \end{array}$$

Similarly to (4.15), the left-hand side can be written as

$$(^jfv^k)_{L^2}^2^jfv^k_{L^2}^2.$$

Each integral on the right-hand side of (4.18) can be bounded above by using Cauchy-Schwartz’s inequality and Lemma 4.1 as follows:

$$\begin{array}{cc}& _^NQ(^{jl}f,^lf)^jfv^{2k}dv\hfill \\ & Q(^{jl}f,^lf)_{L_k^2}^jf_{L_k^2}C^lf_{L_{k+1}^1}^{lj}f_{L_{k+1}^2}^nf_{L_{k+1}^2}^2^jf_{L_k^2}.\hfill \end{array}$$

Now, the $`L^1`$ norms can be estimated as follows:

$$^lf_{L_{k+1}^1}v^{1\mu }_{L^2}^lf_{L_{k+\mu }^2}C^lf_{L_{k+\mu }^2}$$

as soon as $`\mu >1+\frac{N}{2}`$. Gathering the above estimates we obtain:

$$\begin{array}{cc}& (^jfv^k)_{L^2}^2\hfill \\ & ^jfv^k_{L^2}^2+C^jf_{L_k^2}\underset{0lj}{}\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{j}{l}\right)^lf_{L_{k+\mu }^2}^{lj}f_{L_{k+1}^2}.\hfill \\ & k^2^jf_{L_{k1}^2}^2+Cf_{L_{k+\mu }^2}^jf_{L_{k+\mu }^2}^2+C^jf_{L_{k+\mu }^2}f_{H_{k+\mu }^{n1}}^2\hfill \\ & k^2^jf_{L_{k+\mu }^2}^2+C(1+f_{H_{k+\mu }^{n1}}^2)^jf_{L_{k+\mu }^2}^2+C(1+^jf_{L_{k+\mu }^2}^2)f_{H_{k+\mu }^{n1}}^2.\hfill \end{array}$$

Since

$$(^jfv^k)=(^jf)v^k+k^jf|v|v^{k2},$$

we obtain

$$^jf_{L_k^2}^2C(1+k^2+f_{H_{k+\mu }^{n1}}^2)(1+^jf_{L_{k+\mu }^2}^2).$$

Taking the sum over all $`j`$ with $`|j|=n`$ implies the estimate of the lemma. ∎

Lemma 4.6 gives us a way to estimate higher-order derivatives of solutions in terms of lower-order ones. Thus, provided we have a solution to (0.2) that has all $`H_k^1`$ norms bounded in terms of mass and energy (as we assumed in the previous section), we can derive bounds in $`H_k^2`$ for every $`k`$, and then proceed by induction, obtaining bounds in $`H_k^n(^N)`$, for all $`n`$ and all $`k0`$. We then obtain

$$f\underset{n1,k0}{}H_k^n=𝒮,$$

where $`𝒮`$ is the Schwartz class of rapidly decaying smooth functions. Notice that the bounds in each of the spaces $`H_k^n(^N)`$ can be expressed in terms of mass and energy of the solutions.

### 4.4. Regularity for the time-dependent problem

An analysis of the regularity of the time-dependent solutions can be performed in the same vein as for the steady problem. Using the estimates obtained in the previous section in combination with Gronwall lemma will give us results for the time-dependent equation (0.1). Our first lemma is an analog of Lemma 4.3.

###### Lemma 4.7.

Let $`f`$ be a sufficiently regular solution to (0.1) with the initial condition $`f(,0)=f_0L^2(^N)`$, such that $`f`$ has a moment of order $`r=\frac{N+2}{4}`$ bounded uniformly in time. Then

$$f(,t)_{L^2}C,0t<\mathrm{},$$

and

$$f_{L^2([0,T]\times ^N)}C_T,$$

for every $`0T<\mathrm{}`$, where the constants $`C`$ and $`C_T`$ depend only on $`N`$, $`f_0_{L^2}`$ and $`\underset{t0}{sup}f(,t)_{L_r^1}`$.

###### Proof.

Integrating equation (0.1) against $`f`$ we get, arguing similarly to the case of the steady problem:

(4.19)
$$\frac{1}{2}\frac{d}{dt}f_{L^2}^2+f_{L^2}^2K(t)f_{L^2}^{1+\nu },$$

where $`K(t)=Cf_{L_1^1}f_{L_r^1}^{1\nu }`$ and $`\nu =\frac{N2}{N+2}`$ as in (4.9). By interpolation and Sobolev embedding,

$$f_{L^2}f_{L^2}^\lambda f_{L^1}^{1\lambda }Cf_{L^2}^\lambda f_{L^1}^{1\lambda },$$

where $`\lambda =\frac{N}{N+2}`$ as given by (4.16). Therefore,

(4.20)
$$f_{L^2}^2kf_{L^2}^{2/\lambda },$$

where $`k=C^1f_{L^1}^{(\lambda 1)/\lambda }`$ is a constant. Distributing the term $`f_{L^2}`$ in (4.19) equally between the left and the right-hand sides and using inequality (4.20) we obtain

(4.21)
$$\frac{d}{dt}f_{L^2}^2+kf_{L^2}^{2/\lambda }f_{L^2}^2+2K(t)f_{L^2}^{1+\nu }$$

The function $`XX^2+2K(t)X^{1+\nu }`$, appearing on the right-hand side of (4.21) has a global maximum $`(1+\nu )^{2r1}(1\nu )K(t)^{2r}=CK(t)^{2r}`$, so we obtain

(4.22)
$$\frac{d}{dt}f_{L^2}^2+kf_{L^2}^{2/\lambda }CK(t)^{2r}C\overline{K}^{2r}.$$

where $`\overline{K}=\underset{t0}{sup}K(t)\underset{t0}{sup}f_{L_r^1}^2`$. Applying a Gronwall’s lemma argument to (4.22) we then obtain a bound of the $`L^2`$ norm of $`f`$ in terms of $`f_0_{L^2}`$ and $`\underset{t0}{sup}f_{L_r^1}`$. Further, integrating (4.19) over time, we get

$$f_{L^2([0,T]\times ^N)}^2C+\overline{K}_0^Tf_{L^2}^{1+\nu }𝑑tC+\overline{K}T^{(1\nu )/2}f_{L^2([0,T]\times ^N)}^{1+\nu },$$

which proves the second claim of the lemma. ∎

Similar results can be established about the time-dependence of the $`L_k^2`$ norms of the solutions.

###### Lemma 4.8.

Let $`f`$ be a sufficiently regular solution to (0.1), with initial data $`f_0L_k^2(^N)`$, where $`k0`$, and such that $`f`$ has a moment of order $`r(k+1)`$, where $`r=\frac{N+2}{4}`$, bounded uniformly in time. Then

$$f(,t)_{L_k^2}C,0t<\mathrm{},$$

and

$$f_{L_k^2([0,T]\times ^N)}C_T,$$

for every $`0T<\mathrm{}`$, where the constants $`C`$ and $`C_T`$ depend on $`N`$, $`f_0_{L_k^2}`$ and $`\underset{t0}{sup}f(,t)_{L_{r(k+1)}^1}`$ only.

###### Proof.

Multiplying the equation by $`fv^{2k}`$ and integrating we obtain:

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \frac{1}{2}\frac{d}{dt}f_{L_k^2}^2& +_^Nf(fv^{2k})dv=_^NQ(f,f)fv^{2k}𝑑v\hfill \end{array}$$

Following the steps of the proof of Lemma 4.4 and distributing the term $`(fv^k)^2`$ evenly between the left and right-hand sides we obtain the following differential inequality:

(4.23)
$$\begin{array}{cc}& \frac{d}{dt}fv^k_{L^2}^2+(fv^k)_{L^2}^2(fv^k)_{L^2}^2\hfill \\ & +\left(CA_1(t)^{1\nu }A_2(t)+k^2A_3(t)^{1\nu }\right)(fv^k)_{L^2}^{1+\nu },\hfill \end{array}$$

where $`A_1(t)`$, $`A_2(t)`$, and $`A_3(t)`$ are the moments defined in Lemma 4.4. The uniform bounds of the moments imply that the right-hand side of (4.23) is bounded above by a constant. The left-hand side is estimated below as

$$\frac{d}{dt}fv^k_{L^2}^2+cfv^k_{L^2}^{2/\lambda }$$

analogously to (4.19). Thus, by a Gronwall-type argument we obtain that the $`L_k^2`$-norm of $`f`$ is bounded uniformly in time. Integrating (4.23) over time we also get the second claim of the lemma. ∎

Finally, we establish the following analog of Lemma 4.6 which will allow us to study the regularity of higher-order derivatives.

###### Lemma 4.9.

Let $`f`$ be a solution to (0.1) with initial data $`f_0H_k^n(^N)`$ where $`k0`$ and $`n0`$, such that $`f`$ has a moment of order $`r^{}=r(2^n(k+\mu )2\mu +1)`$, where $`r=\frac{N+2}{4}`$ and $`\mu >\frac{N+2}{2}`$, bounded uniformly in time. Then

$$f(,t)_{H_k^n}C,0t<\mathrm{},$$

and

$$f_{L^2([0,T],H_k^{n+1}(^N))}C_T,$$

for every $`0T<\mathrm{}`$, where the constants $`C`$ and $`C_T`$ depend on $`N`$, $`f_0_{H_k^n}`$ and $`\underset{t0}{sup}f(,t)_{L_r^{}^1}`$ only.

###### Proof.

We will use induction on $`n`$. The case $`n=0`$ is already proven in Lemma 4.8. Assuming that the statement of the lemma holds for $`n1`$, we differentiate the equation in $`v`$ and argue as in the proof of Lemma 4.6, obtaining the following inequality:

$$\frac{1}{2}\frac{d}{dt}^nf_{L_k^2}^2+^{n+1}f_{L_k^2}^2C(1+k^2+f_{H_{k+\mu }^{n1}}^2)(1+^nf_{L_{k+\mu }^2}^2)$$

We estimate $`^nf_{L_{k+\mu }^2}^2`$ integrating by parts and using Young’s inequality (cf. ):

$$^nf_{L_{k+\mu }^2}^2\delta ^{n+1}f_{L^2}^2+C_\delta ^{n1}f_{L_{2(k+\mu )}^2}.$$

Then, since we assumed $`f`$ to be bounded in $`H_{2(k+\mu )}^{n1}`$ we get

$$\frac{1}{2}\frac{d}{dt}^nf_{L_k^2}^2^{n+1}f_{L_k^2}^2+C_1(n,k)\delta ^{n+1}f_{L^2}^2+C_2(n,k,\delta ).$$

Choosing $`\delta `$ suitably small, we obtain the conclusion by Gronwall’s lemma. ∎

Lemmas 4.74.9 allow us to make the following conclusions about the regularity of solutions to (0.1). Provided a sufficient number of moments is initially available, the $`H^n`$ regularity of the initial data is preserved with time. Moreover, the established bounds for the derivatives in $`L^2([0,T]\times ^N)`$ imply that after arbitrarily short time the derivatives $`^jf(,t)`$ of any order are in $`L^2(^N)`$, and then they propagate in time. Thus, on the level of apriori estimates we find that the solutions become immediately infinitely smooth in $`v`$ and decay faster than any negative power for $`|v|`$ large.

We can also see that the solutions are infinitely differentiable in $`t`$. Indeed, in view of the established $`H_k^n`$ regularity we have $`f(,t)𝒮(^N)`$ for $`t>0`$, and then equation (0.1) implies $`_tf(,t)𝒮(^N),\text{ for every }t>0.`$ Differentiating the equation in time and proceeding by induction we find also that $`_t^mf(,t)𝒮(^N)`$, for every $`m=1,2,\mathrm{}`$, and for every $`t>0`$. The time derivatives also remain bounded uniformly in time.

## 5. Existence

We next proceed with a rigorous proof of existence that will also justify the formal manipulations performed in the derivation of apriori inequalities.

###### Theorem 5.1.

For every $`f_00`$, $`f_0L_2^1L\mathrm{log}L(^N)`$ there exists a nonnegative weak solution

$$fL^{\mathrm{}}([0,\mathrm{}),L_2^1(^N)),f\mathrm{log}fL^{\mathrm{}}([0,\mathrm{}),L^1(^N))$$

to equation (0.1), with the initial condition $`f(,0)=f_0`$. Furthermore, if in addition $`f_0L_r^1L^2(^N)`$, where $`r=\mathrm{max}\{2,\frac{N+2}{4}\}`$, then for every $`t_0>0`$,

$$fC_b^{\mathrm{}}([t_0,\mathrm{}),𝒮(^N)),$$

where $`C_b^{\mathrm{}}`$ denotes the class of functions with bounded derivatives of any order, and $`𝒮`$ is the Schwartz class of rapidly decaying smooth functions. In particular, for $`t>0`$, $`f`$ is a classical solution of (0.1).

###### Theorem 5.2.

For every $`\rho >0`$ there exists a nonnegative solution $`f`$ to (0.2),

$$f𝒮(^N),\text{satisfying}_^Nf𝑑v=\rho .$$

Furthermore, every nonnegative solution in $`L_r^1L^2(^N)),`$ where $`r=\mathrm{max}\{2,\frac{N+2}{4}\}`$ is in fact in $`𝒮(^N)`$.

###### Proof of Theorem 5.1.

We assume that the initial datum $`f_0`$ is in $`C^{\mathrm{}}(^N)`$ and has compact support (we will remove this assumption in the end of the proof). We also introduce a truncation in the collision term by replacing the factor $`|u|`$ in (1.6) by

(5.1)
$$|u|_{m,M}=m+\mathrm{min}\{|u|,M\}$$

and $`m>0`$, $`M>0`$ are truncation parameters. We then denote by $`Q_{m,M}(f,f)`$ the corresponding collision operator.

The first step of the proof will be to find approximating solutions which we define using the following truncated problem

(5.2)
$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill _tf\mathrm{\Delta }_vf& =Q_{m,M}(f,f),v^3,t[0,T],\hfill \\ \hfill f(0,v)& =f_0(v),\hfill \end{array}$$

where $`m`$, $`M`$ and $`T`$ are fixed positive parameters. We will denote by $`f`$ solutions to (5.2), keeping in mind that they generally depend on $`m`$ and $`M`$.

The solutions will be constructed by applying a fixed point argument to the following approximation scheme:

(5.3)
$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill _tf\mathrm{\Delta }_vf+Mf& =Q_{m,M}(g,g)+Mg,v^3,t[0,T],\hfill \\ \hfill f(v,0)& =f_0(v).\hfill \end{array}$$

Here $`g`$ is a nonnegative function from $`L^{\mathrm{}}([0,T],L_2^1L^2(^N))`$, which for every $`t>0`$ has unit mass and zero average.

Denoting by $`h`$ the right hand side of equation (5.3) we notice that $`h0`$, for every $`g0`$, due to the truncation of the kernel. Indeed,

(5.4)
$$h=Q_{m,M}(g,g)+Mgg(g|v|_{m,M})+Mg0.$$

Further, by analogy with Lemma 4.1 we can estimate $`Q_{m,M}(g,g)`$ as follows:

(5.5)
$$Q_{m,M}(g,g)_{L_k^p}C_Mg_{L_k^1}g_{L_k^p},1p\mathrm{}$$

(there will be no loss of moments since the kernel $`B_{m,M}`$ is bounded). Therefore,

$$hL^{\mathrm{}}([0,T],L_2^1L^2(^N)),$$

as soon as $`g`$ is in the same space. The unique weak solution $`fL^{\mathrm{}}([0,T],L_2^1L^2(^N))`$ of (5.3) is then obtained from the following integral representation:

(5.6)
$$f(v,t)=f_0(v)E(v,t)+_0^th(v,\tau )E(v,t\tau )𝑑\tau ,$$

where $``$ denotes the convolution in $`v`$, and $`E(v,t)`$ is the fundamental solution of (5.3):

$$E(v,t)=\frac{1}{(4\pi t)^{N/2}}e^{\frac{|v|^2}{4t}Mt}.$$

The $`H^2`$ regularity of $`f`$ is then guaranteed by the classical parabolic regularity result \[28, Section 3.3\], and we have the bound

(5.7)
$$f_{H^2([0,T]\times ^N)}C_M(h_{L^2([0,T]\times ^N)}+f_0_{H^1(^N)}).$$

We denote by $`𝒯`$ the operator that maps $`g`$ into $`f`$. We next establish that for a certain choice of constants $`A_1`$ and $`A_2`$ this operator maps the set

(5.8)
$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill B=\{f& L^1([0,T]\times ^N))|f0,_^Nfdv=1,_^Nfvdv=0,\hfill \\ & _^Nf|v|^2dvA_1,_^Nf^2dvA_2^2,\text{ for }a.a.t[0,T]\}\hfill \end{array}$$

into itself. Indeed, the nonnegativity of $`f`$ is evident from the integral representation (5.6), since $`h0`$. The mass and momentum normalization conditions follow easily, since for $`gB`$ the collision term $`Q_{m,M}(g,g)`$ integrates to zero when multiplied by $`1`$ or $`v`$. It remains to verify the last two conditions in (5.8).

For the first of these conditions, multiplying the equation (5.3) by $`|v|^2`$ and integrating by parts we obtain:

(5.9)
$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \frac{d}{dt}& _^Nf|v|^2𝑑v+M_^Nf|v|^2𝑑v2N+M_^Ng|v|^2𝑑v\hfill \\ \hfill & k_^N_^Ngg_{}|v|^2|vv_{}|_{m,M}𝑑v𝑑v_{}2N+(Mmk)_^Ng|v|^2𝑑v,\hfill \end{array}$$

where $`k=ϵ_N(1\alpha ^2)/4`$. Therefore, taking $`g`$ so that

$$_^Ng|v|^2𝑑vA_1^{}=\frac{2N}{mk},$$

yields the differential inequality

$$\frac{d}{dt}_^Nf|v|^2𝑑v+M_^Nf|v|^2𝑑vMA_1^{}.$$

Then, by Gronwall’s lemma,

$$_^Nf|v|^2𝑑v\mathrm{max}(A_1^{},_^Nf_0|v|^2𝑑v)$$

Therefore, setting

$$A_1=\mathrm{max}(A_1^{},_^Nf_0|v|^2𝑑v),$$

we obtain the required estimate.

To obtain a bound of $`f`$ in $`L^2`$ we integrate the equation against $`f`$ and use the inequality (5.5) to estimate $`Q_{m,M}(g,g)`$:

(5.10)
$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \frac{1}{2}\frac{d}{dt}_^Nf^2𝑑v+_^N|f|^2𝑑v& +M_^Nf^2𝑑v\hfill \\ & C_Mg_{L^1}g_{L^2}f_{L^2}+Mg_{L^2}f_{L^2}.\hfill \end{array}$$

By Sobolev’s embedding and interpolation,

$$f_{L^2}Kf_{L^2}Kf_{L^2}^{1/\lambda }f_{L^1}^{(1\lambda )/\lambda }$$

where $`0<\lambda <1`$ is as in (4.16). Therefore, dividing (5.10) by $`f_{L^2}`$ and taking into account that $`g_{L^1}=f_{L^1}=1`$, we get

$$\frac{d}{dt}f_{L^2}+K^2f_{L^2}^{2/\lambda 1}+Mf_{L^2}(C_M+M)g_{L^2}.$$

Using the inequality

$$K^2x^{2/\lambda 1}\frac{1}{\epsilon }xK_\epsilon ,$$

true for all $`\epsilon >0`$, we find

$$\begin{array}{c}\hfill \frac{d}{dt}f_{L^2}+(1/\epsilon +M)f_{L^2}K_\epsilon +(C_M+M)g_{L^2}.\end{array}$$

We then get by Gronwall’s lemma:

(5.11)
$$\begin{array}{c}\hfill f_{L^2}\mathrm{max}(f_0_{L^2},\beta +\gamma g_{L^2}).\end{array}$$

where

(5.12)
$$\begin{array}{c}\hfill \beta =\frac{K_\epsilon }{1/\epsilon +M}\mathrm{and}\gamma =\frac{C_M+M}{1/\epsilon +M}.\end{array}$$

Choosing $`\epsilon <1/C_M`$ we get $`\gamma <1`$. Therefore, we obtain the inequality $`f_{L^2}A_2`$ if we set

$$A_2=\mathrm{max}(f_0_{L^2},\beta /(1\gamma )).$$

It is straightforward to verify that the set $`B`$ is convex and closed in the strong topology of $`L^1([0,T]\times ^N)`$, using Fatou’s lemma and the fact that the second moment in $`|v|`$ is uniformly bounded for $`gB`$. Further, the uniform in time bounds assumed in the definition of $`B`$ imply the continuity of $`Q_{m,M}(g,g)`$ in $`L^1`$. We can then deduce easily that the solution operator $`𝒯`$ itself is continuous, based on the representation (5.6). Finally, the bound for the second moment and the regularity estimate (5.7) imply that the operator $`𝒯`$ maps $`B`$ into its compact subset. By the Schauder theorem, this proves the existence of a fixed point for $`𝒯`$ in $`B`$, which is thereby a weak solution $`f_{m,M}L^{\mathrm{}}([0,T],L_2^1L^2(^N))`$ of (5.2).

Our next goal is to pass to the limit as $`M\mathrm{}`$ and then as $`m0`$, to recover the solutions with the “hard sphere” collision kernel. To this end, we will show that the bounds set forth in the apriori estimates hold for the fixed point solutions, and are uniform in $`M`$ (and $`m`$). First of all, using the computation (5.9) it is easy to conclude that the second moment is bounded uniformly in $`M`$, as soon as $`m>0`$. Indeed, we obtain the following inequality for $`f=f_{m,M}`$,

(5.13)
$$\frac{d}{dt}_^Nf|v|^2𝑑v2Nkm_^Nf|v|^2𝑑v,$$

so the required bound follows by Gronwall’s lemma.

Further, we see that for every $`m>0`$, $`M>0`$ and for every $`T>0`$, the solutions are in $`L^{\mathrm{}}([0,T],L_{2p}^1(^N))`$, for every $`p>1`$. To see this we take $`K>0`$ and introduce the truncated function

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_{p,K}(x)=\{\begin{array}{c}x^p,0x<K\hfill \\ K^p+pK^{p1}(xK),xK.\hfill \end{array}$$

Then $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{p,K}(x)`$ is convex in $`x`$, continuously differentiable, and has a bounded second derivative. It also verifies conditions (3.4)–(3.7), so Lemma 3.2 applies. Taking $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{p,K}(|v|^2)`$ as a test function in the weak form of (5.2) and arguing as in Lemma 3.4, we get

(5.14)
$$\begin{array}{c}\hfill \frac{d}{dt}_^Nf\mathrm{\Psi }_{p,K}(|v|^2)+p(p1)k_pm_{\{|v|^2+|v_{}|^2K\}}ff_{}|v|^{2p}𝑑v𝑑v_{}\\ \hfill 2pAM_^Nf|v|^2𝑑v_^Nf|v|^{2p2}𝑑v+2p(2p2+N)_^Nf|v|^{2p2}𝑑v.\end{array}$$

Therefore, if we take $`1<p2`$, we can pass to the limit as $`K\mathrm{}`$ in (5.14) using the monotonicity with respect to $`K`$ and the bound of $`f`$ in $`L_2^1`$. This implies

$$fL^{\mathrm{}}([0,T],L_{2p}^1(^N)),$$

for every $`1<p2`$, with bounds generally dependent on $`m`$ and $`M`$. By induction, the same property is extended to every $`p0`$.

We see further that the bounds in $`L_{2p}^1`$ are in fact independent on $`M`$. Indeed, estimating the middle term in (5.14) using the inequality

$$|vv_{}|_{m,M}m+|vv_{}|$$

and following the arguments of Lemma 3.4 we get

(5.15)
$$\begin{array}{c}\hfill \frac{d}{dt}_^Nf|v|^{2p}𝑑v+p(p1)k_pm_^Nf|v|^{2p}𝑑vA_p_^Nf|v|𝑑v_^Nf|v|^{2p}𝑑v\\ \hfill +\left(pm_^Nf|v|^2𝑑v+2p(2p2+N)\right)_^Nf|v|^{2p2}𝑑v.\end{array}$$

This implies that for every $`T>0`$ fixed and every $`p0`$, the bounds of $`f=f_{m,M}`$ in $`L^{\mathrm{}}([0,T],L_{2p}^1(^N))`$ are independent of $`M`$.

Using the established $`L_{2p}^1`$ bounds and the fact that $`fH^2([0,T]\times ^N)`$ we can make rigorous the arguments of Lemma 4.7 and then proceed as in Lemmas 4.8-4.9 obtaining that

$$fL^{\mathrm{}}([0,T],H_{2p}^n(^N)),$$

for every $`n=1,2\mathrm{}`$, and every $`p0`$, with bounds independent on $`M`$. This will allow us to pass to the limit as $`M\mathrm{}`$ in the weak form and to show that the limit solutions satisfy the equation with the kernel

$$(m+|u|)b(u,\sigma ).$$

We can then substitute the computation (5.15) by the argument of Lemma 3.4 and find the bounds in $`L^{\mathrm{}}([0,T],L_{2p}^1(^N))`$ that are independent on $`m`$ and $`T`$. Arguing as above we can then pass to the limit as $`m0`$. The limit solution obtained in this step will then satisfy the equation with the “hard sphere” kernel.

Finally, in order to treat the problem with the initial data $`f_0L_2^1L\mathrm{log}L(^N)`$ we can take a sequence $`f^nC_0^{\mathrm{}}(^N)`$ that converges to $`f_0`$ in $`L^1(^N)`$. Then, since the constants in the bounds for the energy and entropy from Section 2 are independent of $`n`$, we can pass to the weak $`L^1`$-limit in the equations. The fact that the bounds of the solutions are independent of $`T`$ allows us to continue the obtained solutions to $`[0,2T]`$, and by induction, to $`[0,\mathrm{})`$.

To study the regularity of solutions with $`L^2`$ initial data we use the parabolic regularity of the equation  to find that $`fH^1([0,T]\times ^N)`$, for any $`T>0`$. Using this fact in combination with the bound $`fL^{\mathrm{}}([0,\mathrm{}),L_r^1(^N))`$ we can make rigorous the argument of Lemma 4.7 and then proceed as in Lemmas 4.8 and 4.9 to find the infinite differentiability of the solutions. ∎

We now turn our attention to the steady equation (0.2) and give a proof of Theorem 5.2. One of the possible approaches consists of adapting the arguments developed above for the time-dependent case. In fact, as a careful reader will easily check, practically all arguments in the above proof apply to the steady equation: the Gronwall lemma arguments will be replaced by the inequalities obtained by dropping the time-derivative terms. The only point that would need more careful attention is the moment estimate (5.15), which is not uniform in $`T`$. It can be replaced by a more elaborate argument for the moment bounds in the case of the truncated collision kernel. We will, however take another approach, which will allow us to obtain the existence of the steady problem as a consequence of the regularization properties of the time-dependent equation.

###### Proof of Theorem 5.2.

The proof of Theorem 5.1 enables us to construct a semigroup on the convex set $`C`$ made of those functions in $`L_2^1L^2(^N)`$ with unit mass and zero mean. Denote it by $`(S_t)_{t0}`$. Our bounds imply that for all $`t>0`$, the range of $`S_t`$ is compact in $`C`$. Therefore, for all $`n`$ the equation

$$f_n=S_{2^n}f_n$$

is solvable by Schauder’s theorem. Since $`f_n=S_1f_n`$, the sequence $`f_n`$ is contained in a fixed compact of $`C`$, namely $`S_1(C)`$. We can therefore extract a subsequence which converges towards some $`f`$. Now for all $`kn`$ we have

$$f_n=S_{2^k}f_n$$

(because $`2^k`$ is a multiple of $`2^n`$), and we can pass to the limit as $`n\mathrm{}`$ using the continuity of the semigroup, thereby obtaining

$$f=S_{2^k}f,\text{for all }k0.$$

Therefore $`f=S_tf`$ for all $`t`$ which is a sum of inverse powers of 2. Since the set of such times forms a dense subset of $`_+`$ and since the semigroup is continuous with respect to $`t`$, we conclude that

$$f=S_tf,\text{for all }t0.$$

This ends the proof. ∎

## 6. Uniqueness by Gronwall’s lemma

We next show that under the assumption that the initial data has the moment of order $`3`$ finite, the solution to the time-dependent problem is unique. The proof uses an argument based on a certain cancellation property of the collision operator multiplied by $`\text{sgn}(f)`$  (see also  for discussion). We show that this property yields the desired result for the operator with inelastic collisions as well.

###### Theorem 6.1.

Assume that $`f_0L_3^1(^N)`$; then the equation (0.1) with the initial condition $`f(,0)=f_0`$ has at most one solution.

###### Proof.

Assume that $`f`$ and $`g`$ are solutions of (0.1), with the same initial data $`f_0`$. Set $`h=fg`$ and $`H=f+g`$. Then $`h`$ satisfies the equation

(6.1)
$$_th\mathrm{\Delta }_vh=\frac{1}{2}(Q(h,H)+Q(H,h)),$$

with the homogeneous initial data. Now take a function $`\psi _\epsilon (x)`$, a continuous approximation of $`sgn(x)`$. We can take

$$\psi _\epsilon (x)=\{\begin{array}{cc}1,\hfill & x\epsilon \hfill \\ x/\epsilon ,\hfill & \epsilon <x\epsilon \hfill \\ 1,\hfill & x>\epsilon .\hfill \end{array}$$

Multiplying equation (6.1) by $`\psi _\epsilon (h)(1+|v|^2)`$ and integrating by parts we get

$$\begin{array}{c}\hfill \frac{d}{dt}_^Nh\psi _\epsilon (h)(1+|v|^2)𝑑v+\frac{1}{2\epsilon }_{\{|h|\epsilon \}}|h|^2(1+|v|^2)𝑑v\\ \hfill 2N_^N\varphi _\epsilon (h)𝑑v=\frac{1}{2}_^N(Q(h,H)+Q(H,h))\psi _\epsilon (h)(1+|v|^2)𝑑v,\end{array}$$

where

$$\varphi _\epsilon (x)=_0^x\psi (t)𝑑t=\{\begin{array}{cc}x+\epsilon /2,\hfill & x\epsilon \hfill \\ x^2/2\epsilon ,\hfill & \epsilon <x\epsilon \hfill \\ x\epsilon /2,\hfill & x>\epsilon .\hfill \end{array}$$

To estimate the right-hand side we can adapt the argument that is known to work in the case of the elastic Boltzmann equation (cf. ). Passing to the weak form we get:

(6.2)
$$\begin{array}{cc}& _^N(Q(h,H)+Q(H,h))\psi _\epsilon (h)(1+|v|^2)𝑑v\hfill \\ & =_^N_^N_{S^{N1}}H_{}\{h\psi _\epsilon (h^{})(1+|v^{}|^2)+h\psi _\epsilon (h_{}^{})(1+|v_{}^{}|^2)\hfill \\ & h\psi _\epsilon (h)(1+|v|^2)h\psi _\epsilon (h_{})(1+|v_{}|^2)\}|u|b(u,\sigma )d\sigma dvdv_{}.\hfill \end{array}$$

Since $`|v^{}|^2+|v_{}^{}|^2|v|^2+|v_{}|^2`$, we can estimate the integrals of the first two terms in the braces as follows:

$$(2+|v|^2+|v_{}|^2c_N\frac{1\alpha ^2}{4}|vv_{}|^2)_^N_^N|h|H_{}(2+|v|^2+|v_{}|^2)|vv_{}|𝑑v𝑑v_{}.$$

Subtracting the third term in the integral (6.2) and noticing that

$$\left|h\psi _\epsilon (h)|h|\right||h|\chi _\epsilon (h),$$

where $`\chi _\epsilon (x)`$ is the characteristic function of the interval $`[\epsilon ,\epsilon ]`$, we obtain the estimate for the first three terms:

$$\begin{array}{c}\hfill _^N_^N|h|H_{}(1+|v_{}|^2)|vv_{}|𝑑v𝑑v_{}\\ \hfill +_^NH_{}_{\{|h|\epsilon \}}h(1+|v|^2)|vv_{}|𝑑v𝑑v_{}.\end{array}$$

The fourth term in (6.2) contributes with another integral like the first one above, so we finally get

$$\begin{array}{c}\hfill \frac{d}{dt}_^Nh\psi _\epsilon (h)(1+|v|^2)𝑑v\\ \hfill 2N_^N\varphi _\epsilon (h)𝑑v+_^N_^N|h|H_{}(1+|v_{}|^2)|vv_{}|𝑑v𝑑v_{}\\ \hfill +\frac{1}{2}_^NH_{}_{\{|h|\epsilon \}}h(1+|v|^2)|vv_{}|𝑑v𝑑v_{}.\end{array}$$

Passing to the limit as $`\epsilon 0`$, we find:

$$\begin{array}{cc}& \frac{d}{dt}_^N|h|(1+|v|^2)𝑑v\hfill \\ & 2N_^N|h|𝑑v+_^N|h|(1+|v|^2)^{1/2}𝑑v_^NH(1+|v|^2)^{3/2}𝑑v\hfill \\ & C_^N|h|(1+|v|^2)𝑑v,\hfill \end{array}$$

since $`H`$ is assumed to be bounded in $`L_3^1(^N)`$. Now since $`h(0,v)=0`$ it follows by Gronwall’s lemma that $`h(t,v)=0`$ for all times. ∎

###### Remark.

The uniqueness result of Theorem 6.1 is most certainly suboptimal. We believe that the uniqueness could be obtained in the class of initial conditions with finite mass and energy, with no additional assumptions, similarly to the the classical Boltzmann equation . The main technical obstacle for such a result is extending the Povzner inequalities in the case inelastic collisions to the class of slowly growing piecewise linear functions $`\psi `$ studied in . We believe that this can be overcome with a more careful analysis of the inelastic collision mechanism.

## 7. Lower bounds with overpopulated high energy tails

In this section we obtain pointwise lower estimates of solutions to (0.1) and (0.2) showing that the behavior of the high-energy tails of solutions is controlled below by “stretched Maxwellians” $`A\mathrm{exp}(a|v|^{3/2})`$. The bounds are established by using the comparison principle based on the parabolic (elliptic) structure of the equations. The following proposition establishes the particular role played by the “stretched Maxwellians”: they can be used as barrier functions in the comparison principle.

###### Proposition 7.1.

Let $`g(v)`$ be a nonnegative function with finite mass $`\rho _0=_^Ng𝑑v`$ and moment of order one, $`\rho _1=_^Ng|v|𝑑v`$. Then for every $`r>0`$, and every $`K>0`$, there is a constant $`a>0`$ such that the function

$$\begin{array}{c}\hfill h(v)=Ke^{a|v|^{3/2}},\end{array}$$

satisfies

(7.1)
$$\begin{array}{c}\hfill \mathrm{\Delta }hQ^{}(g,h)0,\text{for all}|v|>r,\end{array}$$

Further, choosing $`b>0`$ large enough, the function

$$\begin{array}{c}\hfill h(v,t)=Ke^{bta(1+|v|^2)^{3/4}}.\end{array}$$

satisfies

(7.2)
$$\begin{array}{c}\hfill _th+\mathrm{\Delta }hQ^{}(g,h)0,\end{array}$$

for all $`t>0`$ and all $`v^N`$.

###### Proof.

To prove inequality (7.1) we fix an $`r>0`$, compute,

$$\begin{array}{c}\hfill \mathrm{\Delta }h=\left(\frac{9}{4}a^2|v|\frac{3(2N1)}{4}a|v|^{1/2}\right)h\end{array}$$

and use the estimate

$$Q^{}(g,h)=h(g|v|)(\rho _1+\rho _0|v|)h,$$

to obtain

(7.3)
$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \mathrm{\Delta }hQ(g,h)& \left((\frac{9}{4}a^2\rho _0)|v|\rho _1\frac{3(2N1)}{4}a|v|^{1/2}\right)h.\hfill \end{array}$$

If $`\frac{9}{4}a^2\rho _0`$, the factor on right-hand side of (7.3) attains its minimum for $`|v|=r`$. Therefore, inequality (7.1) holds for every $`aa^{}`$, where $`a^{}`$ is the positive root of the quadratic equation

$$\frac{9r}{4}a^2\frac{3(2N1)r^{1/2}}{4}a(\rho _0r+\rho _1)=0$$

For the time-dependent operator, denoting by $`v=(1+|v|^2)^{\frac{1}{2}}`$, we obtain

(7.4)
$$\begin{array}{c}\hfill \mathrm{\Delta }h_th=\left(\frac{3a}{4}|v|^2v^1\left(3a+v^{1/2}\right)\frac{3Na}{2}v^{1/2}+b\right)h.\end{array}$$

Choosing $`a`$ so that $`\frac{9}{4}a^2\rho _0`$ and then $`b\frac{3Na}{2}+\rho _0+\rho _1`$ we obtain inequality (7.2) and complete the proof. ∎

The established property of the function $`h(v)`$ is used in next lemma to obtain a comparison result for the steady equation.

###### Lemma 7.2.

Let $`fL_1^1(^N)`$ be a nonnegative smooth solution to (0.2), with the mass $`\rho _0>0`$. Then, there is a constant $`K>0`$, such that

(7.5)
$$f(v)Ke^{2a|v|^{3/2}},$$

for all $`v^N`$, where $`a`$ is a constant as in Proposition 7.1.

###### Proof.

Assuming the smoothness of the solution to (0.2), there is a constant $`c_0>0`$ and a ball $`B(v_0,r_0)`$ with $`v_0^N`$ and $`r_0>0`$, such that

(7.6)
$$f(v)c_0>0,\text{if}vB(v_0,r_0).$$

The value of $`c_0`$ (as well as $`r_0`$ and $`v_0`$) depend on the solution $`f`$ and use the fact that $`\rho _0>0`$.

Since equation (0.2) is translation invariant, we can take $`g(v)=f(v+v_0)`$; then

(7.7)
$$\mathrm{\Delta }gQ^{}(g,g)=\mathrm{\Delta }g(g|v|)g0.$$

Applying Proposition 7.1 to the function $`g(v)`$ with $`r=r_0`$ we find the barrier function $`h(v)=c_0\mathrm{exp}(a|v|^{3/2})`$, for which we have

(7.8)
$$\mathrm{\Delta }hQ^{}(g,h)=\mathrm{\Delta }h(g|v|)h0,\text{for }|v|>r_0.$$

and

$$g(v)h(v),\text{for}|v|r_0.$$

Therefore, letting $`U(v)=g(v)h(v)`$, subtracting (7.8) from (7.7) we obtain the inequality

$$\mathrm{\Delta }U(g|v|)U0,|v|>r_0,$$

To prove that $`U(v)0`$ everywhere we apply a form of a strong maximum principle (see, for example, ) to the operator

$$U=\mathrm{\Delta }U\nu (U+h)U.$$

We can reduce the problem to proving that $`U0`$ in a bounded domain. Indeed, the decay conditions on $`f`$ imply that for every $`\epsilon >0`$ we can find $`R>0`$ such that $`|U(v)|<\epsilon `$ if $`|v|R`$. Then we have

$$(U+\epsilon )=U\epsilon \nu (g)0,r_0<|v|<R$$

and $`U+\epsilon >0`$ for $`|v|=r_0`$ and $`|v|=R`$. The strong maximum principle then implies that $`U+\epsilon 0`$ for all $`r_0|v|R`$. Letting $`\epsilon `$ go to zero we get

$$U0,\text{for all}|v|r_0.$$

In view of the inequality (7.6) this implies

$$g(v)c_0e^{a|v|^{3/2}},$$

or, applied to the function $`f(v)`$,

$$f(v)c_0e^{a|vv_0|^{3/2}}Ke^{2a|v|^{3/2}},$$

with $`K=c_0e^{a|v_0|^{3/2}}`$. This completes the proof of the lemma. ∎

By using a version of the maximum principle for the parabolic operator, we obtain, in a similar fashion, the pointwise lower bound for the time dependent problem.

###### Lemma 7.3.

Let $`fL^{\mathrm{}}([0,\mathrm{}),L_2^1(^N))`$ be a nonnegative smooth solution to (0.1) with the initial data $`f_0c_0\mathrm{exp}(a_0|v|^{3/2})`$. Then, there are positive constants $`K`$, $`b`$ and $`a`$, generally depending on the solution, such that

$$f(v,t)Ke^{bta|v|^{3/2}},$$

for all $`t>0`$ and all $`v^N`$. Further, if there is a constant $`c_1`$ and a ball $`B(v_0,r_0)`$, such that

$$f(v,t)c_1,\text{if}vB(v_0,r_0),$$

for all $`t`$, then the lower bound

$$f(v,t)Ke^{a|v|^{3/2}},$$

holds uniformly in time, where now $`K>0`$, $`a>0`$ and $`b>0`$ will depend on $`c_1`$, $`v_0`$ and $`r_0`$.

###### Proof.

To prove the first statement of the lemma we use the second part of Proposition 7.1 and repeat the comparison arguments of Lemma 7.2 taking

$$h(v,t)=Ke^{btav^{3/2}}$$

and using the strong maximum principle for the parabolic operator on $`U=f(v+v_0)h(v)`$

$$U=\mathrm{\Delta }U\nu (f)U_tU.$$

For the second part, the additional assumption made on $`f`$ allows us to repeat the proof of Lemma 7.2 using the function $`h`$ from (7.4). ∎

###### Remark.

It is tempting to conjecture that solutions to (0.2) should satisfy a pointwise upper bound of the type $`K^{}\mathrm{exp}(a^{}|v|^{3/2})`$, for certain values of $`a^{}`$ and $`K^{}`$. However, the application of an argument based on the maximum principle requires estimating $`Q^+(f,f)`$ pointwise, which is generally a difficult problem. Assuming a “no-cancellation” property in the spirit of the argument ,

(7.9)
$$Q^+(f,f)Q^{}(f,f)k_\alpha Q^{}(f,f),$$

where $`k_\alpha >0`$, a pointwise upper bound is indeed obtained by the maximum principle techniques. However, a justification of (7.9) at the present time seems to be out of reach. Notice that quite recently Bobylev et al.  were able to prove an upper bound “in the $`L^1`$ sense”, namely, that for a certain choice of $`a^{}>0`$

$$_^Nf(v)\mathrm{exp}(a^{}|v|^{3/2})𝑑v<+\mathrm{},$$

which could possibly be a hint in favor of the pointwise bound hypothesis.

## 8. Concluding remarks

We studied the existence, uniqueness and regularity for the time-dependent equation (0.1) and the existence, regularity for the steady equation (0.2). An important problem that remained beyond the scope of our study is the convergence of the time-dependent solutions to the steady ones as time approaches infinity. In fact, this remains a serious open problem, since no Lyapunov functional for the time-evolution is known to exist. A number of other interesting questions can be raised in connection to the obtained results. Are the steady states unique up to a normalization? Do the steady solutions necessarily have radial symmetry? (This can be expected from the rotation invariance of the equations; the existence and regularity of radial solutions can be obtained by applying our analysis to the reduced one-dimensional problem, as in , or just by working in spaces of radially symmetric functions).

We hope that the methods developed in the present work for the case of diffusion forcing could be useful for studying other problems involving the Boltzmann (Enskog) collision terms with other collision and driving mechanisms. In particular, a generalization to the case of a heat bath including a friction term seems to be rather straightforward. (The lower bounds in that case are expected to be Maxwellians.) It is also likely that applying the techniques of this paper should yield results for problems with the normal restitution coefficient dependent on the relative velocity , which would allow us to study a broader range of physical phenomena.

Another problem worth studying is the (quasi-)elastic limit $`\alpha 1`$. The steady states for the Boltzmann equation with elastic interactions ($`\alpha =1`$) and vanishing diffusion ($`\mu =0`$) are Maxwellians, while for every $`\mu >0`$ and every $`\alpha <1`$ we have a “3/2” lower bound. Obtaining quantitative information on the transition to the Maxwellian steady states would be valuable. We hope to address some of these questions in our future work.

## Acknowledgements

A number of people have contributed in a very important way to the development of the present paper. We would like to thank C. Bizon, S. J. Moon, J. Swift and H. Swinney for discussions concerning the physical aspects of the problem. We are also thankful to A. V. Bobylev, J. A. Carrillo, C. Cercignani and S. Rjasanow for fruitful discussions and a number of suggestions that helped us to improve the presentation. The first author has been supported by NSF under grant DMS 9971779 and by TARP under grant 003658-0459-1999; the third author has been supported by the HYKE European network, contract HPRN-CT-2002-00282. Support from the Texas Institute for Computational and Applied Mathematics/Austin is also gratefuly acknowledged.