English

On Landau damping

Analysis of PDEs 2012-02-22 v5 Astrophysics of Galaxies Statistical Mechanics Plasma Physics

Abstract

Going beyond the linearized study has been a longstanding problem in the theory of Landau damping. In this paper we establish exponential Landau damping in analytic regularity. The damping phenomenon is reinterpreted in terms of transfer of regularity between kinetic and spatial variables, rather than exchanges of energy; phase mixing is the driving mechanism. The analysis involves new families of analytic norms, measuring regularity by comparison with solutions of the free transport equation; new functional inequalities; a control of nonlinear echoes; sharp scattering estimates; and a Newton approximation scheme. Our results hold for any potential no more singular than Coulomb or Newton interaction; the limit cases are included with specific technical effort. As a side result, the stability of homogeneous equilibria of the nonlinear Vlasov equation is established under sharp assumptions. We point out the strong analogy with the KAM theory, and discuss physical implications.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0904.2760,
  title  = {On Landau damping},
  author = {Clément Mouhot and Cédric Villani},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0904.2760},
  year   = {2012}
}

Comments

News: (1) the main result now covers Coulomb and Newton potentials, and (2) some classes of Gevrey data; (3) as a corollary this implies new results of stability of homogeneous nonmonotone equilibria for the gravitational Vlasov-Poisson equation

R2 v1 2026-06-21T12:52:37.583Z