Existence of global solutions to the Cauchy problem for the inelastic Boltzmann equation with near-vacuum data Ricardo Alonso 76P0576T25kinetic equationsinelastic Boltzmann equationgranular materialsviscoelastic spheres The Cauchy problem for the inelastic Boltzmann equation is studied for small data. Existence and uniqueness of mild and weak solutions are obtained for sufficiently small data that lies in the space of functions bounded by Maxwellians. The technique used to derive the result is the well known iteration process of Kaniel and Shinbrot. Indiana University Mathematics Journal 2009 text pdf 10.1512/iumj.2009.58.3506 10.1512/iumj.2009.58.3506 en Indiana Univ. Math. J. 58 (2009) 999 - 1022 state-of-the-art mathematics http://iumj.org/access/