Well/Ill-posedness of the Boltzmann Equation with Soft Potential

Abstract

We consider the Boltzmann equation with the soft potential and angular cutoff. Inspired by the methods from dispersive PDEs, we establish its sharp local well-posedness and ill-posedness in $H^{s}$ Sobolev space. We find the well/ill-posedness separation at regularity $s=\frac{d-1}{2}$, strictly $\frac{1}{2}$-derivative higher than the scaling-invariant index $s=\frac{d-2}{2}$, the usually expected separation point.