Quantitative fluid approximation in transport theory: a unified approach

Abstract: We propose a unified method for the large space-time scaling limit of \emph{linear} collisional kinetic equations in the whole space. The limit is of \emph{fractional} diffusion type for heavy tail equilibria with slow enough decay, and of diffusive type otherwise. The proof is constructive and the fractional/standard diffusion matrix is obtained. The method combines energy estimates and quantitative spectral methods to construct a `fluid mode'. The method is applied to scattering models (without assuming detailed balance conditions), Fokker-Planck operators and L{\'e}vy-Fokker-Planck operators. It proves a series of new results, including the fractional diffusive limit for Fokker-Planck operators in any dimension, for which the formulas for the diffusion coefficient were not known, for L{\'e}vy-Fokker-Planck operators with general equilibria, and for scattering operators including some cases of infinite mass equilibria. It also unifies and generalises the results of previous papers with a quantitative method, and our estimates on the fluid approximation error also seem novel.