Damping of particles interacting with a vibrating medium

Abstract

We investigate the large time behavior of the solutions of a Vlasov–Fokker–Planck equation where particles are subjected to a confining external potential and a self-consistent potential intended to describe the interaction of the particles with their environment. The environment is seen as a medium vibrating in a direction transverse to particles' motion. We identify equilibrium states of the model and justify the asymptotic trend to equilibrium. The analysis relies on hypocoercivity techniques.