Uniqueness of the Non-Equilibrium Steady State for a $1$d BGK model in kinetic theory

Abstract: We continue our investigation of kinetic models of a one-dimensional gas in contact with homogeneous thermal reservoirs at different temperatures. Nonlinear collisional interactions between particles are modeled by a so-called BGK dynamics which conserves local energy and particle density. Weighting the nonlinear BGK term with a parameter $\alpha\in [0,1]$, and the linearinteraction with the reservoirs by $(1-\alpha)$, we prove that for all $\alpha$ close enough to zero, the explicit spatially uniform non-equilibrium stable state (NESS) is \emph{unique}, and there are no spatially non-uniform NESS with a spatial density $\rho$ belonging to $L^p$ for any $p>1$. We also show that for all $\alpha\in [0,1]$, the spatially uniform NESS is dynamically stable, with small perturbation converging to zero exponentially fast.