Mean-field limit of 2D stationary particle systems with signed Coulombian interactions

Abstract

We study the mean-field limits of critical points of interaction energies with Coulombian singularity. An important feature of our setting is that we allow interaction between particles of opposite signs. Particles of opposite signs attract each other whereas particles of the same signs repel each other. In two dimensional, we prove that the associated empirical measures converge to a limiting measure $\mu$ that satisfies a two-fold criticality condition: in velocity form or in vorticity form. Our setting includes the stationary attraction–repulsion problem with Coulombian singularity and the stationary system of point vortices in fluid mechanics. In this last context, in the case where the limiting measure is in $H_{\text{loc}}^{-1}\left(R^2\right)$, we recover the classical criticality condition stating that ${\nabla }^{\perp }g*\mu$, with $g\left(x\right)=-\log \left|x\right|$, is a stationary solution of the incompressible Euler equation. This result, is, to the best of our knowledge, new in the case of particles with different signs (for particles of the positive sign, it was obtained by Schochet in 1996). In order to derive the limiting criticality condition in the velocity form, we follow an approach devised by Sandier–Serfaty in the context of Ginzburg–Landau vortices. This consists of passing to the limit in the stress-energy tensor associated with the velocity field. On the other hand, the criticality condition in the vorticity form is obtained by arguments closer to the ones of Schochet.