Carlo Cercignani – författare

The 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 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.

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 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.

Statistical mechanics may be naturally divided into two branches, one dealing with equilibrium systems, the other with nonequilibrium systems. The equilibrium properties of macroscopic systems are defined in principle by suitable averages in well-defined Gibbs's ensembles. This provides a frame­ work for both qualitative understanding and quantitative approximations to equilibrium behaviour. Nonequilibrium phenomena are much less understood at the present time. A notable exception is offered by the case of dilute gases. Here a basic equation was established by Ludwig Boltzmann in 1872. The Boltzmann equation still forms the basis for the kinetic theory of gases and has proved fruitful not only for a study of the classical gases Boltzmann had in mind but also, properly generalized, for studying electron transport in solids and plasmas, neutron transport in nuclear reactors, phonon transport in superfluids, and radiative transfer in planetary and stellar atmospheres. Research in both the new fields and the old one has undergone a considerable advance in the last thirty years.

This book presents the concepts, methods and applications of kinetic theory to rarefied gas dynamics. After introducing the basic tools, problems in plane geometry are treated using approximation techniques (perturbation and numerical methods). These same techniques are later used 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 problems which are mainly intended to demonstrate the use of the material in the text and to outline additional subjects, results and equations. This will help ensure that the book can be used for a range of graduate courses in aerospace engineering or applied mathematics.

This book presents the concepts, methods and applications of kinetic theory to rarefied gas dynamics. After introducing the basic tools, problems in plane geometry are treated using approximation techniques (perturbation and numerical methods). These same techniques are later used 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 problems which are mainly intended to demonstrate the use of the material in the text and to outline additional subjects, results and equations. This will help ensure that the book can be used for a range of graduate courses in aerospace engineering or applied mathematics.

This volume aims to provide an overview of some recent developments of mathematical kinetic theory focused on its application in modelling complex systems in various ?elds of applied sciences. Mathematical kinetic theory is essentially based on the Boltzmann eq- tion, which describes the evolution, possibly far from equilibrium, of a class of particles modelled as point masses. The equation de?nes the evolution in time and space of the distribution function over the possible microscopic states of the test particle, classically position and velocity. The test particle is subject to pair collisions with the ?eld particles. The interested reader can ?nd in the book, Theory and Application of the Boltzmann Equation, by C. Cercignani, R. Illner, and M. Pulvirenti, Springer, Heidelberg, 1993, all necessary knowledge of the physics and mathematical topics related to this celebrated model of non-equilibrium statistical mech- ics. Another important model of mathematical kinetic theory is the Vlasov equation, where interactions between particles are not speci?cally collisions, but mean ?eld actions of the ?eld particles over the test particle. The model de?nes again an evolution equation for the one-particle distribution function over the microscopic state of the test particle. The two models brie?y mentioned above can be regarded as the fun- mental models of mathematical kinetic theory and the essential background o?ered from the kinetic theory for classical particles towards the modelling of large systems of several particles undergoing non classical interactions.

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.

Statistical mechanics may be naturally divided into two branches, one dealing with equilibrium systems, the other with nonequilibrium systems. The equilibrium properties of macroscopic systems are defined in principle by suitable averages in well-defined Gibbs's ensembles. This provides a frame­ work for both qualitative understanding and quantitative approximations to equilibrium behaviour. Nonequilibrium phenomena are much less understood at the present time. A notable exception is offered by the case of dilute gases. Here a basic equation was established by Ludwig Boltzmann in 1872. The Boltzmann equation still forms the basis for the kinetic theory of gases and has proved fruitful not only for a study of the classical gases Boltzmann had in mind but also, properly generalized, for studying electron transport in solids and plasmas, neutron transport in nuclear reactors, phonon transport in superfluids, and radiative transfer in planetary and stellar atmospheres. Research in both the new fields and the old one has undergone a considerable advance in the last thirty years.

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 volume contains the text of four sets of lecturesdelivered at the third session of the Summer Schoolorganized by C.I.M.E. (Centro Internazionale MatematicoEstivo). These texts are preceded by an introduction writtenby C. Cercignani and M. Pulvirenti which summarizes thepresent status in the area of Nonequilibrium Problems inMany-Particle Systems and tries to put the contents of thedifferent sets of lectures in the right perspective, inorder to orient the reader. The lectures deal with theglobal existence of weak solutions for kinetic models andrelated topics, the basic concepts of non-standard analysisand their application to gas kinetics, the kinetic equationsfor semiconductors and the entropy methods in the study ofhydrodynamic limits.CONTENTS: C. Cercignani, M. Pulvirenti: NonequilibriumProblems in Many-Particle Systems. An Introduction.- L.Arkeryd: Some Examples of NSA in Kinetic Theory.- P.L.Lions: Global Solutions of Kinetic Models and RelatedProblems.- P.A. Markowich: Kinetic Models forSemiconductors.- S.R.S. Varadhan: Entropy Methods inHydrodynamic Scaling.

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 text is written both as a reference book for researchers in physics, astrophysics and applied mathematics, and as a textbook for graduate and postgraduate students. In particular, the book provides an introduction to special and general relativity theory. The aim of the 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.

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.