We prove an invariance principle for a random Lorentz-gas particle in 3 dimensions under the Boltzmann-Grad limit and simultaneous diffusive scaling. That is, for the trajectory of a point-like particle moving among infinite-mass, hard-core, spherical scatterers of radius @math , placed according to a Poisson point process of density @math , in the limit @math , @math , @math up to time scales of order @math . To our knowledge this represents the first significant progress towards solving this problem in classical nonequilibrium statistical physics, since the groundbreaking work of Gallavotti (1970), Spohn (1978) and Boldrighini-Bunimovich-Sinai (1983). The novelty is that the diffusive scaling of particle trajectory and the kinetic (Boltzmann-Grad) limit are taken simulataneously. The main ingredients are a coupling of the mechanical trajectory with the Markovian random flight process, and probabilistic and geometric controls on the efficiency of this coupling.
In the case of infinite horizon (e.g. the plain @math arrangement of the spherical scatterers of diameter less than the lattice spacing) the free flight distribution of a particle flying in a uniformly sampled random direction has a heavy tail which causes a different type of long time behaviour of the particle displacement. The arguments of @cite_20 indicated that in the two-dimensional case super-diffusive scaling of order @math is expected. A central limit theorem with this anomalous scaling was proved with full rigour in @cite_7 , for the Lorentz-particle displacement in the @math -dimensional periodic case with infinite horizon. The periodic infinite horizon case in dimensions @math remains open.
@cite_7 @cite_20
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We study the asymptotic statistical behavior of the 2-dimensional periodic Lorentz gas with an infinite horizon. We consider a particle moving freely in the plane with elastic reflections from a periodic set of fixed convex scatterers. We assume that the initial position of the particle in the phase space is random with uniform distribution with respect to the Liouville measure of the periodic problem. We are interested in the asymptotic statistical behavior of the particle displacement in the plane as the timet goes to infinity. We assume that the particle horizon is infinite, which means that the length of free motion of the particle is unbounded. Then we show that under some natural assumptions on the free motion vector autocorrelation function, the limit distribution of the particle displacement in the plane is Gaussian, but the normalization factor is (t logt)1 2 and nott1 2 as in the classical case. We find the covariance matrix of the limit distribution. As Bleher (J. Stat. Phys. 66(1):315373, 1992) observed the free flight vector of the planar, infinite horizon, periodic Lorentz process S n n=0,1,2, belongs to the non-standard domain of attraction of the Gaussian lawactually with the ( n n ) scaling. Our first aim is to establish his conjecture that, indeed, ( S_ n n n ) converges in distribution to the Gaussian law (a Global Limit Theorem). Here the recent method of Balint and Gouezel (Commun. Math. Phys. 263:461512, 2006), helped us to essentially simplify the ideas of our earlier sketchy proof (Szasz, D., Varju, T. in Modern dynamical systems and applications, pp. 433445, 2004). Moreover, we can also derive (a) the local version of the Global Limit Theorem, (b) the recurrence of the planar, infinite horizon, periodic Lorentz process, and finally (c) the ergodicity of its infinite invariant measure.