Hydrodynamic Limit of a Kinetic Gas Flow Past an Obstacle

Abstract

Given an obstacle in $\mathbb{R}^3$ and a non-zero velocity with small amplitude at the infinity, we construct the unique steady Boltzmann solution flowing around such an obstacle with the prescribed velocity as $|x|\to \infty$, which approaches the corresponding Navier-Stokes steady flow, as the mean-free path goes to zero. Furthermore, we establish the error estimate between the Boltzmann solution and its Navier-Stokes approximation. Our method consists of new $L^6$ and $L^3$ estimates in the unbounded exterior domain, as well as an iterative scheme preserving the positivity of the distribution function.