From particles to fluids 7

If one introduces the distributions

1

N

ξ 0 (x, t) = δ x − xi (t) ,
N
i=1

1

N

ξ (x, t) =
α
δ x − xi (t) viα (t), α = 1, . . . , d, (2.4)
N
i=1
 
1
 1
 −1  
N
 1
ξ d+1 (x, t) = δ x − xi (t) (vi t)2 + φ ε xi (t) − xj (t) ,
N 2 2
i=1 j
=i

to be interpreted as empirical mass momentum and energy densities, then the Ifα ’s can be
written as

If (t) =
α
dx ξ α (x, t)f (x), α = 0, . . . , d + 1.
Λ

Since we are interested in the time dependence of the Ifα ’s, we differentiate them with
respect to t and use (2.2) to compute the right-hand side. It is straightforward to check that


d
d α
I (t) = dx ζα,β (x, t) ∂β f (x) + Oα (ε)
dt f Λ β=1

= dxζα (x, t) · ∇f (x) + Oα (ε) (2.5)
Λ

for some fields ζα defined below, where ∂β denotes ∂xβ and Oα (ε), depending on f , go
to 0 as ε goes to 0, provided that Nεd stays bounded uniformly in ε. Here we are implicitly
assuming that the dynamic does not create large fluctuations in the density. This is one of
the problems one has to face when dealing with the existence of the dynamics for systems
of infinitely many particles and has been solved with suitable assumptions on the poten-
tial. We do not discuss this here and refer the interested readers to the specialized papers
[22,38,65], among the others.
The empirical fields ζα,β , α = 0, . . . , d + 1, β = 1, . . . , 3, called “empirical currents” of
mass, momentum and energy, are:

1

N
 β
ζ0,β (x, t) = δ xi (t) − x vi (t),
N
i=1

1

N

ζα,β (x, t) = δ xi (t) − x
N
i=1


1

N
β  −1  
× viα (t)vi (t) + Ψα,β ε xi (t) − xj (t) ,
2
j =1