Rigorous Derivation of the Wave Kinetic Equation for $\beta$-FPUT System

Abstract

Wave kinetic theory has been suggested as a way to understand the longtime statistical behavior of the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam-Tsingou (FPUT) system, with the aim of determining the thermalization time scale. The latter has been a major problem since the model was introduced in the 1950s. In this thesis we establish the wave kinetic equation for a reduced evolution equation obtained from the $\beta$-FPUT system by removing the non-resonant terms. We work in the kinetic limit $N\to \infty$ and $\beta \to 0$ under the scaling laws $\beta =N^{-\gamma }$ with $0<\gamma <1$. The result holds up to the sub-kinetic time scale $T=N^{-\epsilon }\min (N,N^{5\gamma /4})=N^{-\epsilon }{T}_{\mathrm{kin}}^{5/8}$ for $\epsilon \ll 1$, where $T_{\mathrm{kin}}$ represents the kinetic (thermalization) timescale. The novelties of this work include the treatment of non-polynomial dispersion relations, and the introduction of a robust phase renormalization argument to cancel dangerous divergent interactions.

53 pages, 7 figures; part of the author's PhD dissertation