Kinetic theory of Onsager’s vortices in two-dimensional hydrodynamics

Starting from the Liouville equation and using a BBGKY-like hierarchy, we derive a kinetic equation for the point vortex gas in two-dimensional (2D) hydrodynamics, taking two-body correlations and collective effects into account. This equation is valid at the order 1 / N where N ≫ 1 is the number of point vortices in the system (we assume that their individual circulation scales like γ ∼ 1 / N ). It gives the first correction, due to graininess and correlation effects, to the 2D Euler equation that is obtained for N → + ∞ . For axisymmetric distributions, this kinetic equation does not relax towards the Boltzmann distribution of statistical equilibrium. This implies either that (i) the “collisional” (correlational) relaxation time is larger than N t D , where t D is the dynamical time, so that three-body, four-body… correlations must be taken into account in the kinetic theory, or (ii) that the point vortex gas is non-ergodic (or does not mix well) and will never attain statistical equilibrium. Non-axisymmetric distributions may relax towards the Boltzmann distribution on a timescale of the order N t D due to the existence of additional resonances, but this is hard to prove from the kinetic theory. On the other hand, 2D Euler unstable vortex distributions can experience a process of “collisionless” (correlationless) violent relaxation towards a non-Boltzmannian quasistationary state (QSS) on a very short timescale of the order of a few dynamical times. This QSS is possibly described by the Miller–Robert–Sommeria (MRS) statistical theory which is the counterpart, in the context of two-dimensional hydrodynamics, of the Lynden-Bell statistical theory of violent relaxation in stellar dynamics.