An inequality for convex functionals and its application to a maxwellian gas

We study the trend towards equilibrium of the solution of the spatially homogeneous Boltzmann equation for a gas of Maxwellian molecules. The cases of axially symmetric and plane initial densities are investigated. In these situations, the strong L1 convergence to equilibrium follows by a suitable use of some convex and isotropic functionals, with monotonic behaviour in time along the solution. The initial density is required to have finite energy and entropy. It is shown that the functionals satisfy a common convolution inequality.