Estimation of the first eigenvalue of second order elliptic operators (Q1897278)

The first non-trivial eigenvalue of second-order selfadjoint elliptic operators in \(\mathbb{R}^d\) is studied by the application of the coupling method. Some lower bounds for the eigenvalue are derived. The applied method is of probabilistic nature based on the theory of Markov processes. The main tool to study the spectral gap is the coupling approach combined with some results of the traditional variational method. For the one-dimensional case an analytic approach is given instead of the coupling method. Sharp estimates come from optimal couplings which depend on the form of the applied distance functions.