Special macroscopic modes and hypocoercivity

Abstract

We study linear inhomogeneous kinetic equations with an external confining potential and a collision operator admitting several local conservation laws (local density, momentum and energy). We classify all special macroscopic modes (stationary solutions and time-periodic solutions). We also prove the convergence of all solutions of the evolution equation to such non-trivial modes, with a quantitative exponential rate. This is the first hypocoercivity result with multiple special macroscopic modes with constructive estimates depending on the geometry of the potential.