Analysis of Moment Closures Using $φ$-Divergences for Rarefied Dynamics with Binary Collisions and Their Galerkin Discretizations

This work introduces a robust deterministic framework for approximating solutions of the Boltzmann equation with binary collisions by discretizing their dependence on time, position, and velocity using Galerkin methods. By employing a family of parametric Galerkin closures based on $φ$-divergences i