On a kinetic equation describing the behavior of a gas interacting mainly with radiation

Abstract

In this article we study a kinetic model which describes the interaction between a gas and radiation. Specifically, we consider a scaling limit in which the interaction between the gas and the photons takes place much faster than the collisions between the gas molecules themselves. We prove in the homogeneous case that the solutions of the limit problem solve a kinetic equation for which a well-posedness theory is considered. The proof of the convergence to a new kinetic equation is obtained analyzing the dynamics of the gas-photon system near the slow manifold of steady states.