On a Vlasov-Fokker-Planck equation for stored electron beams

Abstract: In this paper we study a self-consistent Vlasov-Fokker-Planck equations which describes the longitudinal dynamics of an electron bunch in the storage ring of a synchrotron particle accelerator. We show existence and uniqueness of global classical solutions under physical hypotheses on the initial data. The proof relies on a mild formulation of the equation and hypoelliptic regularization estimates. We also address the problem of the long-time behavior of solutions. We prove the existence of steady states, called Haissinski solutions, given implicitly by a nonlinear integral equation. When the beam current (i.e. the nonlinearity) is small enough, we show uniqueness of steady state and local asymptotic nonlinear stability of solutions in appropriate weighted Lebesgue spaces. The proof is based on hypocoercivity estimates. Finally, we discuss the physical derivation of the equation and its particular asymmetric interaction potential.