Separation of elastic and inelastic processes in the relaxation time approximation for collision integral

TL;DR

This paper proposes a generalized relaxation-time-approximation for the Boltzmann collision integral, enabling separate treatment of elastic and inelastic processes, and demonstrates its effectiveness through numerical simulations.

Contribution

It introduces a new framework that distinguishes elastic and inelastic relaxation times in the Boltzmann equation, improving modeling flexibility.

Findings

Effective separation of elastic and inelastic processes demonstrated

Numerical results show the framework's applicability across different relaxation time regimes

Enhanced accuracy in kinetic modeling of complex systems

Abstract

We introduce a generalised relaxation-time-approximation form of the collision term in the Boltzmann kinetic equation that allows for using different relaxation times for elastic and inelastic collisions. The efficacy of the proposed framework is demonstrated with the numerical calculations that describe systems with different relations between the two relaxation times and the evolution time of the system.