Nonlinear kinetic Fokker-Planck equations as gradient flows of the free energy

Abstract: We consider nonhomogeneous kinetic equations that involve a free transport operator and a diffusion of porous medium type acting on velocities. The main novelty is a gradient flow interpretation of dynamics driven by an interplay of conservative and dissipative effects. We rely on a notion of discrepancy adapted to a phase space of positions and velocities, built upon second-order characteristics obeying Newton's laws. The equation appears as the steepest descent of the free energy functional. We also prove that approximate solutions constructed with an implicit Euler scheme converge to a solution of the kinetic equation. Thus, we generalise to a family of nonlinear kinetic equations the celebrated JKO scheme in mass transport theory. Most of our results are new even in the case of the linear Vlasov-Fokker-Planck equation.