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A discussion of Frieman's method in the theory of irreversible processes

University of British Columbia

We investigate a new perturbation technique introduced by E. Frieman to derive a kinetic equation from the equations of the BBGKY hierarchy. The orders of magnitude of the terms in the latter equations are calculated and Frieman's estimate is found incorrect. His derivation of the Landau's equation for a weakly coupled gas actually depends on the existence of the relaxation time rather than the much shorter mean free time as he expected. A physical interpretation of the Grad's theorem and Grad's original proof is given to justify the choice of the molecular chaos, conditions at the initial time. Two examples are given to clarify the applicability of the perturbation method.

Text

2011-09-15

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/37393

Physics

University of British Columbia

Graduate