Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2015 / iii / Paper 8 / 2 / e

Work in the Banach space ${\mathcal{B}}_T$ of bounded strongly measurable maps $[0,T]\to L_{x,v}^2$, with norm $\Vert g{\Vert }_{{\mathcal{B}}_T}={\sup }_{0\le t\le T}\Vert g(t){\Vert }_2$. Keeping actual representatives at every time matches the pointwise-in-time mild formulation. The Boltzmann Volterra operator is bounded on this space, and the factorial bound for a Volterra iterate givesThus the Volterra series for the linear Boltzmann equation converges in operator norm for every finite $T$, even when $CT\ge 1$. SetFor its partial sums, $(I-\tau ){\sum }_{n=0}^N{\tau }^{n}F=F-{\tau }^{N+1}F$. The remainder tends to zero by the factorial estimate. Hence $(I-\tau )f=F$, precisely the required characteristic integral equation.

The norm bound in (b) gives an explicit choice of the existence constant:Also $f(0)=f_0$, since every term with $n\ge 1$ vanishes at zero and the damping interval has length zero. This proves existence in the paper's weak, characteristic-integral sense. With merely measurable nonnegative $a$, that sense does not itself require a continuous initial trace; that trace follows under the additional local characteristic-integrability condition described in (b).