The well-known Rutherford differential cross section, denoted by $ dOmega/dsigma$, corresponds to a two body interaction with Coulomb potential. It leads to the logarithmically divergence of the momentum transfer (or the transport cross section) which is described by $$int_{{mathbb S}^2} (1-costheta) frac{dOmega}{dsigma} dsigmasim int_0^{pi} theta^{-1}dtheta. $$ Here $theta$ is the deviation angle in the scattering event. Due to screening effect, physically one can assume that $theta_{min}$ is the order of magnitude of the smallest angles for which the scattering can still be regarded as Coulomb scattering. Under ad hoc cutoff $theta geq theta_{min}$ on the deviation angle, L. D. Landau derived a new equation in cite{landau1936transport} for the weakly interacting gas which is now referred to as the Fokker-Planck-Landau or Landau equation. In the present work, we establish a unified framework to justify Landaus formal derivation in cite{landau1936transport} and the so-called Landau approximation problem proposed in cite{alexandre2004landau} in the close-to-equilibrium regime. Precisely, (i). we prove global well-posedness of the Boltzmann equation with cutoff Rutherford cross section which is perhaps the most singular kernel both in relative velocity and deviation angle. (ii). we prove a global-in-time error estimate between solutions to Boltzmann and Landau equations with logarithm accuracy, which is consistent with the famous Coulomb logarithm. Key ingredients into the proofs of these results include a complete coercivity estimate of the linearized Boltzmann collision operator, a uniform spectral gap estimate and a novel linear-quasilinear method.
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