Derivation of the Four-Wave Kinetic Equation in Action-Angle Variables

Abstract

Starting from the action-angle variables and using a standard asymptotic expansion, here we present a new derivation of the Wave Kinetic Equation for resonant process of the type $2\leftrightarrow 2$. Despite not offering new physical results and despite not being more rigorous than others, our procedure has the merit of being straightforward; it allows for a direct control of the random phase and random amplitude hypothesis of the initial wave field. We show that the Wave Kinetic Equation can be derived assuming only initial random phases. The random amplitude approximation has to be taken only at the end, after taking the weak nonlinearity and large box limits. This is because the $\delta$-function over frequencies contains the amplitude-dependent nonlinear correction which should be dropped before the random amplitude approximation applies. If $\epsilon$ is the small parameter in front of the anharmonic part of the Hamiltonian, the time scale associated with the Wave Kinetic equation is shown to be $1/\epsilon^2$. We give evidence that random phase and amplitude hypotheses persist up to a time of the order $1/\epsilon$.