The aim of this book is to present the theory and applications of the relativistic Boltzmann equation in a self-contained manner, even for those readers who have no familiarity with special and general relativity. Though an attempt is made to present the basic concepts in a complete fashion, the style of presentation is chosen to be appealing to readers who want to understand how kinetic theory is used for explicit calculations. The book will be helpful not only as a textbook for an advanced course on relativistic kinetic theory but also as a reference for physicists, astrophysicists and applied mathematicians who are interested in the theory and applications of the relativistic Boltzmann equation.

This book is devoted to the presentation of rigorous mathematical results in the kinetic theory of a gas of hard spheres. Recent developments as well as classical results are presented in a unified way, such that the book should become the standard reference on the subject. There is no such book available at present. The reader will find a systematic treatment of the main mathematical results, a discussion of open problems, and a guide to the existing literature. There is a rigorous and comprehensive presentation of strict validation of the Boltzmann equations, global existence theory, and the fluid-dynamical limits. The authors also review and discuss classical derivation and properties of the Boltzmann equation, particle simulation methods, and boundary conditions.

This volume is intended to coverthe presentstatus of the mathematicaltools used to deal with problems related to slow rare?ed ?ows. The meaning and usefulness of the subject, and the extent to which it is covered in the book, are discussed in some detail in the introduction. In short, I tried to present the basic concepts and the techniques used in probing mathematical questions and problems which arise when studying slow rare?ed ?ows in environmental sciences and micromachines. For the book to be up-to-date without being excessively large, it was necessary to omit some topics, which are treated elsewhere, as indicated in the introd- tion and, whenever the need arises, in the various chapters of this volume. Their omission does not alter the aim of the book, to provide an understanding of the essential mathematical tools required to deal with slow rare?ed ?ows and give the background for a study of the original literature. Although I have tried to give a rather complete bibliographical coverage, the choice of the topics and of the references certainly re?ects a personal bias and I apologize in advance for any omission. I wish to thank Lorenzo Valdettaro, Antonella Abb a, Silva Lorenzani and Paolo Barbante for their help with pictures and especially Professor Ching Shen for his permission to reproduce his pictures on microchannel ?ows.

This book gives a complete exposition of the present status of the theory of the Boltzmann equation and its applications. The Boltzmann equation, an integrodifferential equation established by Boltzmann in 1872 to describe the state of a dilute gas, still forms the basis for the kinetic theory of gases. It has proved fruitful not only for the study of the classical gases Boltzmann had in mind, but also, properly generalized, for electron transport in nuclear reactors, photon transport in superfluids, and radiative transport in planetary and stellar atmospheres. The text presents a unified approach to the problems arising in these different fields, by exploiting similarities whenever they exist and underlining the differences when necessary. But the main exposition is tied to the classical equation established by Boltzmann. Hence the detailed description of applications refers almost exclusively to monatomic neutral gases. Appropiate references are given to papers dealing with similar problems arising in other fields, with particular concern for neutron transport. A unique feature is the detailed consideration of the boundary conditions to be used in connection with the Boltzmann equation. Other topics covered in detail are the derivation of the Boltzmann equation from first principles, the theory of the linearized Boltzmann equation, the use of model equations, and the various regimes of rarefied gas dynamics. In addition to updating the material to 1987, the main improvement over the previous book of the author, "Theory and Application of the Boltzmann equation" is the detailed survey of the use of the techniques of functional analysis in connection with the nonlinear Boltzmannequation, a subject which has greatly progressed in the last ten years.

The study of kinetic equations related to gases, semiconductors, photons, traffic flow, and other systems has developed rapidly in recent years because of its role as a mathematical tool in many applications in areas such as engineering, meteorology, biology, chemistry, materials science, nanotechnology, and pharmacy. Written by leading specialists in their respective fields, this book presents an overview of recent developments in the field of mathematical kinetic theory with a focus on modeling complex systems, emphasizing both mathematical properties and their physical meaning.

The overall presentation covers not only modeling aspects and qualitative analysis of mathematical problems, but also inverse problems, which lead to a detailed assessment of models in connection with their applications, and to computational problems, which lead to an effective link of models to the analysis of real-world systems. The book is divided into three parts: Part I presents fundamental aspects of the Boltzmann equation; Part II deals with the modeling of semiconductor devices as well as related applications and computational topics; Part III covers a variety of applications in physics and the natural sciences, offering a range of very different conceivable developments of mathematical kinetic theory.

Transport Phenomena and Kinetic Theory is an excellent self-study reference for graduate students, researchers, and practitioners working in pure and applied mathematics, mathematical physics, and engineering. The work may be used in courses or seminars on selected topics in transport phenomena or applications of the Boltzmann equation.

This work presents the concepts, methods and applications of kinetic theory to rarefied gas dynamics. After introducing the basic tools, Carlo Cercignani treats problems in plane geometry using all the approximation techniques. He later uses these same techniques to deal with two- and three-dimensional problems. The models include not only monatomic but also polyatomic gases, mixtures, chemical reactions. A special chapter is devoted to evaporation and condensation phenomena. Each section is accompanied by helpful problems. The book can be used in a range of graduate courses in aerospace engineering or applied mathematics.

This work presents the concepts, methods and applications of kinetic theory to rarefied gas dynamics. After introducing the basic tools, Carlo Cercignani treats problems in plane geometry using all the approximation techniques. He later uses these same techniques to deal with two- and three-dimensional problems. The models include not only monatomic but also polyatomic gases, mixtures, chemical reactions. A special chapter is devoted to evaporation and condensation phenomena. Each section is accompanied by helpful problems. The book can be used in a range of graduate courses in aerospace engineering or applied mathematics.

The idea for this book was conceived by the authors some time in 1988, and a first outline of the manuscript was drawn up during a summer school on mathematical physics held in Ravello in September 1988, where all three of us were present as lecturers or organizers. The project was in some sense inherited from our friend Marvin Shinbrot, who had planned a book about recent progress for the Boltzmann equation, but, due to his untimely death in 1987, never got to do it. When we drew up the first outline, we could not anticipate how long the actual writing would stretch out. Our ambitions were high: We wanted to cover the modern mathematical theory of the Boltzmann equation, with rigorous proofs, in a complete and readable volume. As the years progressed, we withdrew to some degree from this first ambition- there was just too much material, too scattered, sometimes incomplete, sometimes not rigor ous enough. However, in the writing process itself, the need for the book became ever more apparent. The last twenty years have seen an amazing number of significant results in the field, many of them published in incom plete form, sometimes in obscure places, and sometimes without technical details. We made it our objective to collect these results, classify them, and present them as best we could. The choice of topics remains, of course, subjective.

The aim of this book is to present the theory and applications of the relativistic Boltzmann equation in a self-contained manner, even for those readers who have no familiarity with special and general relativity. Though an attempt is made to present the basic concepts in a complete fashion, the style of presentation is chosen to be appealing to readers who want to understand how kinetic theory is used for explicit calculations. The book will be helpful not only as a textbook for an advanced course on relativistic kinetic theory but also as a reference for physicists, astrophysicists and applied mathematicians who are interested in the theory and applications of the relativistic Boltzmann equation.

This book gives a complete exposition of the present status of the theory of the Boltzmann equation and its applications. The Boltzmann equation, an integrodifferential equation established by Boltzmann in 1872 to describe the state of a dilute gas, still forms the basis for the kinetic theory of gases. It has proved fruitful not only for the study of the classical gases Boltzmann had in mind, but also, properly generalized, for electron transport in nuclear reactors, photon transport in superfluids, and radiative transport in planetary and stellar atmospheres. The text presents a unified approach to the problems arising in these different fields, by exploiting similarities whenever they exist and underlining the differences when necessary. But the main exposition is tied to the classical equation established by Boltzmann. Hence the detailed description of applications refers almost exclusively to monatomic neutral gases. Appropiate references are given to papers dealing with similar problems arising in other fields, with particular concern for neutron transport.A unique feature is the detailed consideration of the boundary conditions to be used in connection with the Boltzmann equation. Other topics covered in detail are the derivation of the Boltzmann equation from first principles, the theory of the linearized Boltzmann equation, the use of model equations, and the various regimes of rarefied gas dynamics. In addition to updating the material to 1987, the main improvement over the previous book of the author, Theory and Application of the Boltzmann equation is the detailed survey of the use of the techniques of functional analysis in connection with the nonlinear Boltzmann equation, a subject which has greatly progressed in the last ten years.

The first part of this volume presents the basic ideas concerning perturbation and scaling methods in the mathematical theory of dilute gases, based on Boltzmann's integro-differential equation. It is of course impossible to cover the developments of this subject in less than one hundred pages. Already in 1912 none less than David Hilbert indicated how to obtain approximate solutions of the scaled Boltzmann equation in the form of a perturbation of a parameter inversely proportional to the gas density. His paper is also reprinted as Chapter XXII of his treatise Grundzuge einer allgemeinen Theorie der linearen Integralgleichungen. The motive for this circumstance is clearly stated in the preface to that book ("Recently I have added, to conclude, a new chapter on the kinetic theory of gases. [ ...]. I recognize in the theory of gases the most splendid application of the theorems concerning integral equations. ") The mathematically rigorous theory started, however, in 1933 with a paper [48] by Tage Gillis Torsten Carleman, who proved a theorem of global exis- tence and uniqueness for a gas of hard spheres in the so-called space-homogeneous case. Many other results followed; those based on perturbation and scaling meth- ods will be dealt with in some detail. Here, I cannot refrain from mentioning that, when Pierre-Louis Lions obtained the Fields medal (1994), the commenda- tion quoted explicitly his work with the late Ronald DiPerna on the existence of solutions of the Boltzmann equation.

This volume contains the text of four sets of lectures delivered at the third session of the Summer School organized by C.I.M.E. (Centro Internazionale Matematico Estivo). These texts are preceded by an introduction written by C. Cercignani and M. Pulvirenti which summarizes the present status in the area of Nonequilibrium Problems in Many-Particle Systems and tries to put the contents of the different sets of lectures in the right perspective, in order to orient the reader. The lectures deal with the global existence of weak solutions for kinetic models and related topics, the basic concepts of non-standard analysis and their application to gas kinetics, the kinetic equations for semiconductors and the entropy methods in the study of hydrodynamic limits. CONTENTS: C. Cercignani, M. Pulvirenti: Nonequilibrium Problems in Many-Particle Systems. An Introduction.- L. Arkeryd: Some Examples of NSA in Kinetic Theory.- P.L. Lions: Global Solutions of Kinetic Models and Related Problems.- P.A. Markowich: Kinetic Models for Semiconductors.- S.R.S. Varadhan: Entropy Methods in Hydrodynamic Scaling.

This book presents the life and personality, the scientific and philosophical work of Ludwig Boltzmann, one of the great scientists who marked the passage from 19th- to 20th-Century physics. His rich and tragic life, ending by suicide at the age of 62, is described in detail. A substantial part of the book is devoted to discussing his scientific and philosophical ideas and placing them in the context of the second half of the 19th century. The fact that Boltzmann was the man who did most to establish that there is a microscopic, atomic structure underlying macroscopic bodies is documented, as is Boltzmann's influence on modern physics, especially through the work of Planck on light quanta and of Einstein on Brownian motion. Boltzmann was the centre of a scientific upheaval, and he has been proved right on many crucial issues. He anticipated Kuhn's theory of scientific revolutions and proposed a theory of knowledge based on Darwin. His basic results, when properly understood, can also be stated as mathematical theorems. Some of these have been proved: others are still at the level of likely but unproven conjectures. The main text of this biography is written almost entirely without equations. Mathematical appendices deepen knowledge of some technical aspects of the subject.

The book presents the life and personality, and the scientific and philosophical work of Ludwig Boltzmann, one of the great scientists who marked the passage from 19th to 20th century physics. His rich and tragic life, ending by suicide at the age of 62, is described in detail. A substantial part of the book is devoted to discussing his scientific and philosophical ideas and placing them in the context of the second half of the 19th century. The fact that Boltzmann was the man who did most to establish that there is a microscopic, atomic structure underlying macroscopic bodies is documented, as is Boltzmann's influence on modern physics, especially through the work of Planck on light quanta and of Einstein on Brownian motion.

Boltzmann was the centre of a scientific revolution, and he has been proved right on many crucial issues. He anticipated Kuhn's theory of scientific revolutions and proposed a theory of knowledge based on Darwin. His basic results, when properly understood, can also be stated as mathematical theorems. Some of these have been proved; others are still at the level of likely but unproven conjectures. The main text of this biography is written almost entirely without equations. Mathematical appendices deepen knowledge of some technical aspects of the subject.