The massless electron limit for the Vlasov-Poisson-Landau system
The massless electron limit for the Vlasov-Poisson-Landau system
In-Person Talk
The Vlasov-Poisson-Landau is a kinetic model for ionized plasmas. In听this talk, I will describe the massless electron听limit for this system. This leads to a simplified model for the听positively charged ions, where ion-electron collisions can be ignored.听In joint work with Yan Guo, we give a听rigorous justification of this limit. A major difficulty is that the听limit is singular: specifically, there is a small factor of epsilon in听front of the time derivative of the electron distribution. In general,听such a coefficient could cause rapid oscillations or growth. However,听in this case, the VPL system is degenerate parabolic. With some work,听we can use this parabolicity to show that the electrons remain close听to the limiting distribution, via precise energy estimates and a form听of hypocoervicity.