Explicit coercivity estimates for the linearized Boltzmann and Landau operators

Abstract

We prove explicit coercivity estimates for the linearized Boltzmann and Landau operators, for a general class of interactions including any inverse-power law interactions, and hard spheres. The functional spaces of these coercivity estimates depend on the collision kernel of these operators. They cover the spectral gap estimates for the linearized Boltzmann operator with Maxwell molecules, improve these estimates for hard potentials, and are the first explicit coercivity estimates for soft potentials (including in particular the case of Coulombian interactions). We also prove a regularity property for the linearized Boltzmann operator with non locally integrable collision kernels, and we deduce from it a new proof of the compactness of its resolvent for hard potentials without angular cutoff.