Boltzmann to Landau from the Gradient Flow Perspective

Abstract

We revisit the grazing collision limit connecting the Boltzmann equation to the Landau(-Fokker-Planck) equation from their recent reinterpretations as gradient flows. Our results are in the same spirit as the $\Gamma$-convergence of gradient flows technique introduced by Sandier and Serfaty. In this setting, the grazing collision limit reduces to showing the lower semi-continuous convergence of the Boltzmann entropy-dissipation to the Landau entropy-dissipation.