Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / The differential-operator approximation to the linear Boltzmann operator (the Master equation operator) has been studied by several authors. In 1960 Siegel proposed a systematic approach called the CD expansion. He represents the approximating series in terms of creation and destruction operators for Hermite functions. In this thesis we study the physical meaning of a small parameter which usually exists in the CD expansion and which ensures the convergence of the series. We also establish the CD-expansion formalism for N-dimensional processes and initiate the study of the CD-expansion of the linear Boltzmann collision operator in the kinetic theory of gases.
In the case of one-dimensional processes; the models we study are the density fluctuations with a particle reservoir of finite volume, Alkemade's diode model, and Rayleigh disk. We find that the expansion parameter is the ratio of the average microscopic agitation interval to the macroscopic relaxation time. We further prove that this ratio is equal to the ratio of the average variance of the discontinuity of the random process determined by the linear. Boltzmann operator to the variance of the macroscopic observable at equilibrium. Since the CD expansion is an expansion with respect to the parameter of discontinuity, the expansion series reduces to the Fokker-Planck operator in the limiting case where the parameter becomes zero.
In the N-dimensional formalism, we use tensor Hermite polynomials and find a formalism valid for processes of any finite dimensionality. In extending the study to the kinetic theory of gases, we establish a method of obtaining derivate moments directly from the collision operator, and obtain a formula for the Hermite coefficients of derivate moments for an arbitrary force field.
We propose the CD hypothesis: The terms of the CD expansion are homogeneous and of successively increasing order in the parameter of discontinuity of the process. This hypothesis I holds for all the models we study in the one-dimension case. In three-dimensional collision processes it holds for an intermolecular force field obeying an inverse power law and for rigid spheres. Beyond these cases, the necessary and sufficient conditions for the hypothesis are rather complicated. A sufficient condition is, however, that the scattering cylinder (scattering cross section multiplied by the magnitude of the relative velocity) be a homogeneous function of the magnitude of the relative velocity.
In addition to the general results mentioned in the above, we obtain a number of particular results. Special cases of our density fluctuation model are the density fluctuations studied by van Kampen (1961), and Ehrenfest's urn model. We also introduce an isotropic Maxwellian particle which corresponds to s-wave scattering in wave mechanics, and which yields the CD expansion in a diagonal form. / 2031-01-01
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bu.edu/oai:open.bu.edu:2144/34418 |
| Date | January 1964 |
| Creators | Akama, Hachiro |
| Publisher | Boston University |
| Source Sets | Boston University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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