Spectral Gap Estimates Research Articles

Sharp spectral gap estimates for higher-order operators on Cartan–Hadamard manifolds

The goal of this paper is to provide sharp spectral gap estimates for problems involving higher-order operators (including both the clamped and buckling plate problems) on Cartan–Hadamard manifolds. The proofs are symmetrization-free — thus no sharp isoperimetric inequality is needed — based on two general, yet elementary functional inequalities. The spectral gap estimate for clamped plates solves a sharp asymptotic problem from [Q.-M. Cheng and H. Yang, Universal inequalities for eigenvalues of a clamped plate problem on a hyperbolic space, Proc. Amer. Math. Soc. 139(2) (2011) 461–471] concerning the behavior of higher-order eigenvalues on hyperbolic spaces, and answers a question raised in [A. Kristály, Fundamental tones of clamped plates in nonpositively curved spaces, Adv. Math. 367(39) (2020) 107113] on the validity of such sharp estimates in high-dimensional Cartan–Hadamard manifolds. As a byproduct of the general functional inequalities, various Rellich inequalities are established in the same geometric setting.

A generic functional inequality and Riccati pairs: an alternative approach to Hardy-type inequalities

We present a generic functional inequality on Riemannian manifolds, both in additive and multiplicative forms, that produces well known and genuinely new Hardy-type inequalities. For the additive version, we introduce Riccati pairs that extend Bessel pairs developed by Ghoussoub and Moradifam (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 2008 & Math. Ann., 2011). This concept enables us to give very short/elegant proofs of a number of celebrated functional inequalities on Riemannian manifolds with sectional curvature bounded from above by simply solving a Riccati-type ODE. Among others, we provide alternative proofs for Caccioppoli inequalities, Hardy-type inequalities and their improvements, spectral gap estimates, interpolation inequalities, and Ghoussoub-Moradifam-type weighted inequalities. Concerning the multiplicative form, we prove sharp uncertainty principles on Cartan-Hadamard manifolds, i.e., Heisenberg-Pauli-Weyl uncertainty principles, Hydrogen uncertainty principles and Caffarelli-Kohn-Nirenberg inequalities. Some sharpness and rigidity phenomena are also discussed.

Spectral gap estimates for mixed p-spin models at high temperature

Spectral gap estimates for mixed p-spin models at high temperature

Lord Rayleigh’s Conjecture for Vibrating Clamped Plates in Positively Curved Spaces

We affirmatively solve the analogue of Lord Rayleigh’s conjecture on Riemannian manifolds with positive Ricci curvature for any clamped plates in 2 and 3 dimensions, and for sufficiently large clamped plates in dimensions beyond 3. These results complement those from the flat (Ashbaugh and Benguria in Duke Math J 78(1):1–17, 1995; Nadirashvili in Arch Ration Mech Anal 129(1):1–10, 1995) and negatively curved (Kristály in Adv Math 367:107113, 2020) cases that are valid only in 2 and 3 dimensions, and at the same time also provide the first positive answer to Lord Rayleigh’s conjecture in higher dimensions. The proofs rely on an Ashbaugh–Benguria–Nadirashvili–Talenti nodal-decomposition argument, on the Lévy–Gromov isoperimetric inequality, on fine properties of Gaussian hypergeometric functions and on sharp spectral gap estimates of fundamental tones for both small and large clamped spherical caps. Our results show that positive curvature enhances genuine differences between low- and high-dimensional settings, a tacitly accepted paradigm in the theory of vibrating clamped plates. In the limit case—when the Ricci curvature is non-negative we establish a Lord Rayleigh-type isoperimetric inequality that involves the asymptotic volume ratio of the non-compact complete Riemannian manifold; moreover, the inequality is strongly rigid in 2 and 3 dimensions, i.e., if equality holds for a given clamped plate then the manifold is isometric to the Euclidean space.

Critical Droplets and Sharp Asymptotics for Kawasaki Dynamics with Strongly Anisotropic Interactions

In this paper we analyze metastability and nucleation in the context of the Kawasaki dynamics for the two-dimensional Ising lattice gas at very low temperature. Let varLambda subset {mathbb {Z}}^2 be a finite box. Particles perform simple exclusion on varLambda , but when they occupy neighboring sites they feel a binding energy -U_1<0 in the horizontal direction and -U_2<0 in the vertical one. Thus the Kawasaki dynamics is conservative inside the volume varLambda . Along each bond touching the boundary of varLambda from the outside to the inside, particles are created with rate rho =e^{-varDelta beta }, while along each bond from the inside to the outside, particles are annihilated with rate 1, where beta >0 is the inverse temperature and varDelta >0 is an activity parameter. Thus, the boundary of varLambda plays the role of an infinite gas reservoir with density rho . We consider the parameter regime U_1>2U_2 also known as the strongly anisotropic regime. We take varDelta in {(U_1,U_1+U_2)}, so that the empty (respectively full) configuration is a metastable (respectively stable) configuration. We consider the asymptotic regime corresponding to finite volume in the limit as beta rightarrow infty . We investigate how the transition from empty to full takes place with particular attention to the critical configurations that asymptotically have to be crossed with probability 1. The derivation of some geometrical properties of the saddles allows us to identify the full geometry of the minimal gates and their boundaries for the nucleation in the strongly anisotropic case. We observe very different behaviors for this case with respect to the isotropic (U_1=U_2) and weakly anisotropic (U_1<2U_2) ones. Moreover, we derive mixing time, spectral gap and sharp estimates for the asymptotic transition time for the strongly anisotropic case.

Scaling limit of stationary coupled Sasamoto-Spohn models

We introduce a family of stationary coupled Sasamoto-Spohn models and show that, in the weakly asymmetric regime, they converge to the energy solution of coupled Burgers equations. Moreover, we show that any system of coupled Burgers equations satisfying the so-called trilinear condition ensuring stationarity can be obtained as the scaling limit of a suitable system of coupled Sasamoto-Spohn models. The core of our proof, which avoids the use of spectral gap estimates, consists in a second order Boltzmann-Gibbs principle for the discrete model.

Global well-posedness and exponential stability for the fermion equation in weighted Sobolev spaces

&lt;p style='text-indent:20px;'&gt;This work deals with the Cauchy problem and the asymptotic behavior of the solution of the fermion equation in the Sobolev spaces with a polynomial weight in the torus. We first investigate the linearized equation and obtain the optimal exponential decay rate for the associated semigroup. Our strategy is taking advantage of quantitative spectral gap estimates in smaller reference Hilbert space, the factorization method and the enlargement of the functional space. We then turn to the nonlinear equation and prove the global existence and uniqueness of solutions in a close-to-equilibrium regime. Moreover, we prove an exponential stability for such a solution with the optimal decay rate given by the semigroup decay of the linearized equation.&lt;/p&gt;

Boltzmann Equation with Cutoff Rutherford Scattering Cross Section Near Maxwellian

The well-known Rutherford differential cross section, denoted by $ d\Omega/d\sigma$, corresponds to a two body interaction with Coulomb potential. It leads to the logarithmically divergence of the momentum transfer (or the transport cross section) which is described by $$\int_{{\mathbb S}^2} (1-\cos\theta) \frac{d\Omega}{d\sigma} d\sigma\sim \int_0^{\pi} \theta^{-1}d\theta. $$ Here $\theta$ is the deviation angle in the scattering event. Due to screening effect, physically one can assume that $\theta_{\min}$ is the order of magnitude of the smallest angles for which the scattering can still be regarded as Coulomb scattering. Under ad hoc cutoff $\theta \geq \theta_{\min}$ on the deviation angle, L. D. Landau derived a new equation in \cite{landau1936transport} for the weakly interacting gas which is now referred to as the Fokker-Planck-Landau or Landau equation. In the present work, we establish a unified framework to justify Landau's formal derivation in \cite{landau1936transport} and the so-called Landau approximation problem proposed in \cite{alexandre2004landau} in the close-to-equilibrium regime. Precisely, (i). we prove global well-posedness of the Boltzmann equation with cutoff Rutherford cross section which is perhaps the most singular kernel both in relative velocity and deviation angle. (ii). we prove a global-in-time error estimate between solutions to Boltzmann and Landau equations with logarithm accuracy, which is consistent with the famous Coulomb logarithm. Key ingredients into the proofs of these results include a complete coercivity estimate of the linearized Boltzmann collision operator, a uniform spectral gap estimate and a novel linear-quasilinear method.

Quantitative spectral gaps for hypoelliptic stochastic differential equations with small noise

We study the convergence rate to equilibrium for a family of Markov semigroups $\{\mathcal{P}_t^{\epsilon}\}_{\epsilon > 0}$ generated by a class of hypoelliptic stochastic differential equations on $\mathbb{R}^d$, including Galerkin truncations of the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations, Lorenz-96, and the shell model SABRA. In the regime of vanishing, balanced noise and dissipation, we obtain a sharp (in terms of scaling) quantitative estimate on the exponential convergence in terms of the small parameter $\epsilon$. By scaling, this regime implies corresponding optimal results both for fixed dissipation and large noise limits or fixed noise and vanishing dissipation limits. As part of the proof, and of independent interest, we obtain uniform-in-$\epsilon$ upper and lower bounds on the density of the stationary measure. Upper bounds are obtained by a hypoelliptic Moser iteration, the lower bounds by a de Giorgi-type iteration (both uniform in $\epsilon$). The spectral gap estimate on the semigroup is obtained by a weak Poincar\'e inequality argument combined with quantitative hypoelliptic regularization of the time-dependent problem.

On the multi-species Boltzmann equation with uncertainty and its stochastic Galerkin approximation

In this paper the nonlinear multi-species Boltzmann equation with random uncertainty coming from the initial data and collision kernel is studied. Well-posedness and long-time behavior – exponential decay to the global equilibrium – of the analytical solution, and spectral gap estimate for the corresponding linearized gPC-based stochastic Galerkin system are obtained, by using and extending the analytical tools provided in [M. Briant and E.S. Daus,Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal.3(2016) 1367–1443] for the deterministic problem in the perturbative regime, and in [E.S. Daus, S. Jin and L. Liu,Kinet. Relat. Models12(2019) 909–922] for the single-species problem with uncertainty. The well-posedness result of the sensitivity system presented here has not been obtained so far neither in the single species case nor in the multi-species case.

Quantum graphs on radially symmetric antitrees

We investigate spectral properties of Kirchhoff Laplacians on radially symmetric antitrees. This class of metric graphs admits a lot of symmetries, which enables us to obtain a decomposition of the corresponding Laplacian into the orthogonal sum of Sturm–Liouville operators. In contrast to the case of radially symmetric trees, the deficiency indices of the Laplacian defined on the minimal domain are at most one and they are equal to one exactly when the corresponding metric antitree has finite total volume. In this case, we provide an explicit description of all self-adjoint extensions including the Friedrichs extension. Furthermore, using the spectral theory of Krein strings, we perform a thorough spectral analysis of this model. In particular, we obtain discreteness and trace class criteria, a criterion for theKirchhoff Laplacian to be uniformly positive and provide spectral gap estimates. We show that the absolutely continuous spectrumis in a certain sense a rare event, however, we also present several classes of antitrees such that the absolutely continuous spectrum of the corresponding Laplacian is [O, \infty) .

On non-local ergodic Jacobi semigroups: spectral theory, convergence-to-equilibrium and contractivity

In this paper, we introduce and study non-local Jacobi operators, which generalize the classical (local) Jacobi operators. We show that these operators extend to generators of ergodic Markov semigroups with unique invariant probability measures and study their spectral and convergence properties. In particular, we derive a series expansion of the semigroup in terms of explicitly defined polynomials, which generalize the classical Jacobi orthogonal polynomials. In addition, we give a complete characterization of the spectrum of the non-self-adjoint generator and semigroup. We show that the variance decay of the semigroup is hypocoercive with explicit constants, which provides a natural generalization of the spectral gap estimate. After a random warm-up time, the semigroup also decays exponentially in entropy and is both hypercontractive and ultracontractive. Our proofs hinge on the development of commutation identities, known as intertwining relations, between local and non-local Jacobi operators and semigroups, with the local objects serving as reference points for transferring properties from the local to the non-local case.

Markov Chain-Based Sampling for Exploring RNA Secondary Structure under the Nearest Neighbor Thermodynamic Model and Extended Applications.

Ribonucleic acid (RNA) secondary structures and branching properties are important for determining functional ramifications in biology. While energy minimization of the Nearest Neighbor Thermodynamic Model (NNTM) is commonly used to identify such properties (number of hairpins, maximum ladder distance, etc.), it is difficult to know whether the resultant values fall within expected dispersion thresholds for a given energy function. The goal of this study was to construct a Markov chain capable of examining the dispersion of RNA secondary structures and branching properties obtained from NNTM energy function minimization independent of a specific nucleotide sequence. Plane trees are studied as a model for RNA secondary structure, with energy assigned to each tree based on the NNTM, and a corresponding Gibbs distribution is defined on the trees. Through a bijection between plane trees and 2-Motzkin paths, a Markov chain converging to the Gibbs distribution is constructed, and fast mixing time is established by estimating the spectral gap of the chain. The spectral gap estimate is obtained through a series of decompositions of the chain and also by building on known mixing time results for other chains on Dyck paths. The resulting algorithm can be used as a tool for exploring the branching structure of RNA, especially for long sequences, and to examine branching structure dependence on energy model parameters. Full exposition is provided for the mathematical techniques used with the expectation that these techniques will prove useful in bioinformatics, computational biology, and additional extended applications.

Optimal Exponential Decay for the Linearized Ellipsoidal BGK Model in Weighted Sobolev Spaces

This paper deals with the asymptotic behavior of solution to the linearized ellipsoidal BGK model in torus. We prove that the solution converges exponentially to the equilibrium in the weighted Sobolev spaces with polynomial weight. Our exponential decay rate $$e^{-\lambda t}$$ is optimal in the sense that $$\lambda >0$$ equals to the spectral gap of the linearized operator in the standard Hilbert space. Our strategy is taking advantage of the quantitative spectral gap estimates in a smaller reference Hilbert space, the factorization method, and the enlargement of the functional space for the associated semigroup.

Stationary directed polymers and energy solutions of the Burgers equation

We consider the stationary O’Connell–Yor model of semi-discrete directed polymers in a Brownian environment in the intermediate disorder regime and show convergence of the increments of the log-partition function to the energy solutions of the stochastic Burgers equation.The proof does not rely on the Cole–Hopf transform and avoids the use of spectral gap estimates for the discrete model. The key technical argument is a second-order Boltzmann–Gibbs principle.

Fundamental tones of clamped plates in nonpositively curved spaces

We study Lord Rayleigh's problem for clamped plates on an arbitrary n-dimensional (n≥2) Cartan-Hadamard manifold (M,g) with sectional curvature K≤−κ2 for some κ≥0. We first prove a McKean-type spectral gap estimate, i.e. the fundamental tone of any domain in (M,g) is universally bounded from below by (n−1)416κ4 whenever the κ-Cartan-Hadamard conjecture holds on (M,g), e.g. in 2- and 3-dimensions due to Bol (1941) and Kleiner (1992), respectively. In 2- and 3-dimensions we prove sharp isoperimetric inequalities for sufficiently small clamped plates, i.e. the fundamental tone of any domain in (M,g) of volume v>0 is not less than the corresponding fundamental tone of a geodesic ball of the same volume v in the space of constant curvature −κ2 provided that v≤cn/κn with c2≈21.031 and c3≈1.721, respectively. In particular, Rayleigh's problem in Euclidean spaces resolved by Nadirashvili (1992) and Ashbaugh and Benguria (1995) appears as a limiting case in our setting (i.e. K≡κ=0). Sharp asymptotic estimates of the fundamental tone of small and large geodesic balls of low-dimensional hyperbolic spaces are also given. The sharpness of our results requires the validity of the κ-Cartan-Hadamard conjecture (i.e. sharp isoperimetric inequality on (M,g)) and peculiar properties of the Gaussian hypergeometric function, both valid only in dimensions 2 and 3; nevertheless, some nonoptimal estimates of the fundamental tone of arbitrary clamped plates are also provided in high-dimensions. As an application, by using the sharp isoperimetric inequality for small clamped hyperbolic discs, we give necessarily and sufficient conditions for the existence of a nontrivial solution to an elliptic PDE involving the biharmonic Laplace-Beltrami operator.

Non-commutative Calculus, Optimal Transport and Functional Inequalities in Dissipative Quantum Systems

We study dynamical optimal transport metrics between density matrices associated to symmetric Dirichlet forms on finite-dimensional C^*-algebras. Our setting covers arbitrary skew-derivations and it provides a unified framework that simultaneously generalizes recently constructed transport metrics for Markov chains, Lindblad equations, and the Fermi Ornstein–Uhlenbeck semigroup. We develop a non-nommutative differential calculus that allows us to obtain non-commutative Ricci curvature bounds, logarithmic Sobolev inequalities, transport-entropy inequalities, and spectral gap estimates.

A version of Aldous’ spectral-gap conjecture for the zero range process

We show that the spectral-gap of a general zero range process can be controlled in terms of the spectral-gap of a single particle. This is in the spirit of Aldous' famous spectral-gap conjecture for the interchange process. Our main inequality decouples the role of the geometry (defined by the jump matrix) from that of the kinetics (specified by the exit rates). Among other consequences, the various spectral-gap estimates that were so far only available on the complete graph or the $d$-dimensional torus now extend effortlessly to arbitrary geometries. As an illustration, we determine the exact order of magnitude of the spectral-gap of the rate-one $\textbf{ZRP}$ on any regular graph and, more generally, for any doubly stochastic jump matrix.

Heat kernel upper bounds for interacting particle systems

We show a diffusive upper bound on the transition probability of a tagged particle in the symmetric simple exclusion process. The proof relies on optimal spectral gap estimates for the dynamics in finite volume, which are of independent interest. We also show off-diagonal estimates of Carne–Varopoulos type.

Berry\u2013Esseen theorem and quantitative homogenization for the random conductance model with degenerate conductances

We study the random conductance model on the lattice {mathbb {Z}}^d, i.e. we consider a linear, finite-difference, divergence-form operator with random coefficients and the associated random walk under random conductances. We allow the conductances to be unbounded and degenerate elliptic, but they need to satisfy a strong moment condition and a quantified ergodicity assumption in form of a spectral gap estimate. As a main result we obtain in dimension dge 3 quantitative central limit theorems for the random walk in form of a Berry–Esseen estimate with speed t^{-frac{1}{5}+varepsilon } for dge 4 and t^{-frac{1}{10}+varepsilon } for d=3. Additionally, in the uniformly elliptic case in low dimensions d=2,3 we improve the rate in a quantitative Berry–Esseen theorem recently obtained by Mourrat. As a central analytic ingredient, for dge 3 we establish near-optimal decay estimates on the semigroup associated with the environment process. These estimates also play a central role in quantitative stochastic homogenization and extend some recent results by Gloria, Otto and the second author to the degenerate elliptic case.