[For the entire collection see Zbl 0594.00021.]
We study some field-dependent rarefied-gas phenomena on the basis of kinetic theory. Comparison with experimental results may answer the question to what extent production of polarization at the surface plays a role in these effects. We restrict ourselves to pure gases consisting of diatomic diamagnetic molecules. Angular momentum is treated classically, and vibrational excitation ignored. The surface of the walls shall be macroscopically uniform, rotationally invariant and left-right symmetric.
The method to be employed is a variational scheme based on the linearized Boltzmann equation and boundary conditions.