Geometric analysis of the linear Boltzmann equation I. Trend to equilibrium

Abstract: This work is devoted to the analysis of the linear Boltzmann equation in a bounded domain, in the presence of a force deriving from a potential. The collision operator is allowed to be degenerate in the following two senses: (1) the associated collision kernel may vanish in a large subset of the phase space; (2) we do not assume that it is bounded below by a Maxwellian at infinity in velocity. We study how the association of transport and collision phenomena can lead to convergence to equilibrium, using concepts and ideas from control theory. We prove two main classes of results. On the one hand, we show that convergence towards an equilibrium is equivalent to an almost everywhere geometric control condition. The equilibria (which are not necessarily Maxwellians with our general assumptions on the collision kernel) are described in terms of the equivalence classes of an appropriate equivalence relation. On the other hand, we characterize the exponential convergence to equilibrium in terms of the Lebeau constant, which involves some averages of the collision frequency along the flow of the transport. We handle several cases of phase spaces, including those associated to specular reflection in a bounded domain, or to a compact Riemannian manifold.