Dirichlets and Thomsons principles for non-selfadjoint elliptic operators with application to non-reversible metastable diffusion processes


Abstract in English

We present two variational formulae for the capacity in the context of non-selfadjoint elliptic operators. The minimizers of these variational problems are expressed as solutions of boundary-value elliptic equations. We use these principles to provide a sharp estimate for the transition times between two different wells for non-reversible diffusion processes. This estimate permits to describe the metastable behavior of the system.

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