Variational derivation of the homogeneous Boltzmann equation
Mathematical Physics
2026-04-09 v1 math.MP
Probability
Abstract
We introduce a variational formulation of the homogeneous Boltzmann equation, with hard-sphere cross section, which selects the unique energy conserving solution. We prove that this solution arises from the microscopic dynamics, namely Kac's walk, and we establish the propagation in time of entropic chaoticity, under the minimal assumption that the initial distribution is entropically chaotic.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2604.06919,
title = {Variational derivation of the homogeneous Boltzmann equation},
author = {Giada Basile and Dario Benedetto and Carlo Orrieri},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.06919},
year = {2026}
}