Spectral gaps of Schrödinger operators and diffusion operators on abstract Wiener spaces (Q2511670): Difference between revisions

Recently, \textit{B. Andrews} and \textit{J. Clutterbuck} [J. Am. Math. Soc. 24, No. 3, 899--916 (2011; Zbl 1222.35130)] proved the fundamental gap conjecture for the first two eigenvalues of a Schrödinger operator \(-\Delta + V\) with a weakly convex potential \(V\) and Dirichlet boundary conditions on a bounded convex domain \(\Omega\) in any space dimension. This states that the spectral gap, i.e., the difference between the first two eigenvalues, is not smaller than the corresponding gap of the one-dimensional Dirichlet Laplacian on an interval of the same diameter as \(\Omega\) with \(V=0\). Here, the authors give generalisations to far more abstract, and indeed general, spaces, including infinite-dimensional settings. More precisely, they consider the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck \(\mathcal{L}_*\) operator on an abstract Wiener space, to which they add a potential \(V\) satisfying the KLMN condition. The main result is a lower bound on the spectral gap of the operator \(-\mathcal{L}_*+V\) in terms of the gap of a suitable one-dimensional comparison operator, namely the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck operator on \(\mathbb{R}\) with respect to the standard Gaussian measure plus potential, i.e., \[ -\frac{d^2}{ds^2}+s\frac{d}{ds} + \tilde V(s), \] where \(\tilde V\) is a so-called modulus of concavity for the higher-dimensional potential \(V\) (as in the paper of Andrews and Clutterbuck). The authors also derive, among other results in this direction, a ``modulus of log-concavity'' result for their operator \(-\mathcal{L}_* + V\), which in particular yields the uniqueness of the ground state if the gap of the one-dimensional comparison operator is strictly positive. Other results in this direction, in particular for diffusion operators of the form \(-\mathcal{L}_* + \nabla F \cdot \nabla \) (for suitable \(F\)) are obtained. The theorems are illustrated by a number of instructive examples and special cases.