Fredholm property of the linearized Boltzmann operator for a polyatomic single gas model

Abstract

In the following work, we consider the Boltzmann equation that models a polyatomic gas by representing the microscopic internal energy by a continuous variable I. Under some convenient assumptions on the collision cross-section $\mathcal{B}$, we prove that the linearized Boltzmann operator $\mathcal{L}$ of this model is a Fredholm operator. For this, we write $\mathcal{L}$ as a perturbation of the collision frequency multiplication operator, and we prove that the perturbation operator $\mathcal{K}$ is compact. The result is established after inspecting the kernel form of $\mathcal{K}$ and proving it to be $L^2$ integrable over its domain using elementary arguments.