  Usually, the relaxation times of a gas are estimated in the frame of the
Boltzmann equation. In this paper, instead, we deal with the relaxation problem
in the frame of the dynamical theory of Hamiltonian systems, in which the
definition itself of a relaxation time is an open question. We introduce a
lower bound for the relaxation time, and give a general theorem for estimating
it. Then we give an application to a concrete model of an interacting gas, in
which the lower bound turns out to be of the order of magnitude of the
relaxation times observed in dilute gases.
