Existence of global solutions to the Cauchy problem for the inelastic Boltzmann equation with near-vacuum data

Abstract

The Cauchy problem for the inelastic Boltzmann equation is studied for small data. Existence and uniqueness of mild and weak solutions is obtained for sufficiently small data that lies in the space of functions bounded by Maxwellians. The technique used to derive the result is the well known iteration process of Kaniel and Shinbrot.