Divergence of the Chapman-Enskog expansion in relativistic kinetic theory

Abstract

In this letter we show for the first time that the relativistic Chapman-Enskog series for a massless gas undergoing Bjorken expansion diverges. In order to fix this problem, we propose a novel type of expansion that includes non-perturbative contributions in the Knudsen number that are not considered in Chapman-Enskog theory. This approach is in good agreement with exact solutions of the Boltzmann equation for a wide range of values of Knudsen number and does not display the clear signs of divergence exhibited by the Chapman-Enskog series.