To simplify our analysis, we use an approximation to the kinetic equation known as the differential approximation (see, e.g., [16],[17],[18]). The differential quantum kinetic equation (DQKE) gives qualitatively correct behavior in general, but is strictly valid only when the particle and energy transfer happens primarily between neighbors in momentum space. It is easy to verify that it has a four-parameter-family of a steady (equilibrium) solutions and it is easy to identify two of these parameters as the flux of particle number and energy respectively and the other two as temperature and chemical potential. The analytical expressions for the fluxes can be calculated so that, for any given distribution, the corresponding fluxes may be easily computed numerically. The steady (equilibrium) solutions can be found analytically in various limits. The DQKE is much more suitable for numerical experiments than the full collision integral, simply because it is easier and faster to compute derivatives than integrals of the collision type.
We now demonstrate the derivation of the differential approximation
in the fermion case. This result is new. The results for the cases of
classical waves and bosonic systems are given in (4.9).
Assume that
is dominated by its contribution
from the region
. We call such a
coupling coefficient ``strongly diagonal''. Then obviously the
integrand of the QKE deviates significantly from zero in the same
region. The first derivation of the differential kinetic equation
proceeds as follows. Multiply both sides of (3.6) by a
sufficiently smooth function
and integrate with respect to
:
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An alternative derivation of the DQKE can be given by applying the
Zakharov transformation (see, e.g., [23]) directly to the QKE.
The Zakharov transformation is a conformal change of variables which
reveals the symmetry of original collision integral. It transforms
certain regions of the integration domain and, in the classical case,
makes the transformed collision integral have a zero integrand for
certain power law distributions. The Zakharov-transformed KE takes the
form