Universal estimate of the gap for the Kac operator in the convex case (Q1320297)

The author studies the spectrum of the Kac operator: \[ K_ V = \exp \bigl ( -V(x)/2 \bigr) \cdot \exp \Delta \cdot \exp \bigl( - V(x)/2 \bigr) \] in \(L^ 2 (\mathbb{R}^ m)\) where \(V\) is a real valued smooth function in \(\mathbb{R}^ m\) with \(\inf (\text{Hess} V(x)) \geq \sigma > 0\). The spectrum is a real sequence of eigenvalues \(\mu_ 1 \geq \mu_ 2 \geq \mu_ 3 \geq \cdots \to 0\). It is also true that \(\mu_ 1\) is a simple eigenvalue. As in the case of the Schrödinger operator, it is important to know the spectral gap of eigenvalues. The author proves \[ \mu_ 2/ \mu_ 1 \leq \exp \bigl( - \cosh^{-1} (\sigma + 2)/2 \bigr). \]