Journal of Statistical Physics, Vol. 112, Nos. 3/4, August 2003. p. 629-655.
The Knudsen layer in rarefied gas dynamics is essentially described by a half-space boundary-value problem of the linearized Boltzmann equation, in which the incoming data are specified on the boundary and the solution is assumed to be bounded at infinity (Milne problem). This problem is considered for a binary mixture of hard-sphere gases, and the existence and uniqueness of the solution, as well as some asymptotic properties, are proved. The proof is an extension of that of the corresponding theorem for a single-component gas given by Bardos, Caflisch, and Nicolaenko [Comm. Pure Appl. Math. 39:323 (1986)]. Some estimates on the convergence of the solution in a finite slab to the solution of the Milne problem are also obtained.