Thermal transpiration for the linearized Boltzmann equation

The phenomena of thermal transpiration due to the boundary temperature gradient is studied on the level of the linearized Boltzmann equation for the hard‐sphere model. We construct such a flow for a highly rarefied gas between two plates and also in a circular pipe. It is shown that the flow velocity parallel to the plates is proportional to the boundary temperature gradient. For a highly rarefied gas, that is, for a sufficiently large Knudsen number κ, the flow velocity between two plates is of the order of log κ, and the flow velocity in a pipe is of finite order. Our analysis is based on certain pointwise estimates of the solutions of the linearized Boltzmann equation. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.