Quenched asymptotics of the ground state energy of random Schrödinger operators with scaled Gibbsian potentials (Q1400839)

The author examines the ground state energy of the random Schrödinger operator \[ -{1 \over 2} \Delta + \beta (\log t)^{-2/d} V, \quad \beta >0 \] restricted with Dirichlet boundary conditions to the box \(]-t,t[^d \subset \mathbb{R}^d\) in the limit \(t\to \infty\). The randomness enters with the potential \[ V(x,\omega) = \sum_{j}W(x - x_{j}) = \int W(x-y) \omega(dy)\; \] where \(\Omega \ni \omega(dy) = \sum_{j}\delta_{x_{j}}(dy)\) and \(\Omega\) is the set of all simple, locally finite point measures on \(\mathbb{R}^d\). The shape function \(W\) is assumed to be nonnegative, measurable, bounded, with compact support and it has to satisfy \(\| W\| _{L^1} = 1\). Let \(\omega, \chi \in \Omega\) and \(K\subset \mathbb{R}^d\) be a bounded domain. The probability measure on \(\Omega\) is given by a tempered Gibbs measure \(P_{z}^U\) with the local Hamiltonian \[ H(\omega| \chi,K):= {1\over 2}\int\int_{x,y\in K, x\neq y}U(x-y) \omega(dx)\omega(dy) + \int\int_{x\in K, y\in K^c}U(x-y)\omega(dx)\chi(dy) \] and reference measure \(P_{z}\). Here \(P_{z}\) denotes the distribution of a Poisson point process with constant activity \(z>0\) and \(U\) is a real valued, symmetric, translation invariant pair potential. It is furthermore assumed that \(U\) is measurable, compactly supported, bounded from below and superstable. Given the measure \(P_{z}\) more general distributions \(P_{\nu}\) of a Poisson process are introduced as follows. Using \(\langle \phi,\omega\rangle = \int_{\mathbb{R}^d}\phi \,d\omega\) one sets \[ P_{\nu}(d\omega) := {e^{-\langle \phi,\omega\rangle}\over E_{z}[e^{-\langle\phi,\omega\rangle}]} P_{z}(d\omega) \;, \qquad E_{z}[e^{-\langle\phi,\omega\rangle}] = \exp\left( \int (e^{-\phi(x)}-1)z\,dx\right) \] where the author considers only functions \(\phi\) with compact support which are bounded from below. Let \(\lambda_{\beta V(\cdot, \omega)}(B)\) be the principal eigenvalue of the operator \(-\Delta/2 +\beta V(\cdot, \omega)\) restricted with Dirichlet boundary conditions to the domain \(B\) where \(V\) is a soft Poissonian potential. In this non-scaled case it has been proven by \textit{A.-S. Sznitman} in [Probab. Theory Relat. Fields 97, No.~4, 447--477 (1993; Zbl 0794.60110)] that almost surely with respect to a Poisson point process with homogeneous intensity \(\nu\) one has \[ (\log t)^{2/d} \log \lambda_{\beta V(\cdot,\omega)}(]-t,t[^d) \to c(d,\nu) \qquad (t\to \infty) \] where \(c(d,\nu)\) denotes the principle eigenvalue of \(-\Delta/2\) restricted again with Dirichlet boundary conditions to the ball in \(\mathbb{R}^d\) with volume \(d/\nu\). On the other hand, in [Probab. Theory Relat. Fields 119, No. 4, 475--507 (2001; Zbl 1037.82022) and Ann. Inst. Henri Poincaré, Probab. Stat. 38, No. 3, 253--284 (2002; Zbl 0996.82036)] the author and \textit{M. Wüthrich} obtained for scaled Poissonian potentials in the critical scale, that is for potentials \(\beta (\log t)^{-2/d}V\), the asymptotics \[ (\log t)^{2/d}\log \lambda_{\beta (\log t)^{-2/d}V}(]-t,t[^d) \to I(\beta) \qquad (t\to\infty) \] for almost all Poissonian point processes. The deterministic function is shown to be dependent qualitatively on the dimension and the authors prove the existence of a phase transition in dimensions \(d\geq 4\). The present paper is an extension of the case with scaled potentials and Poissonian distribution to the case where the randomness is described by a Gibbsian measure as introduced above. The main result reads as follows: Given a pair potential \(U\) satisfying the assumptions mentioned above, let \(\beta >0\) and \(P_{z}^U\) be the corresponding Gibbs measure with constant activity \(z\) then one has \(P_{z}^U\) almost surely \[ (\log t)^{2/d}\log \lambda_{\beta (\log t)^{-2/d}V(\cdot, \omega)}(]-t,t[^d) \to I^U(\beta) \qquad (t\to\infty) \] for some determinstic number \(I^U(\beta)>0\). Furthermore, the number \(I^U(\beta)\) can be described by variational principles involving only thermodynamic quantities. More precisely, let \(p\) denote the thermodynamic pressure and \(f\) be the density of the thermodynamic free energy which is defined as the Legendre transform of \(p\). Moreover, set \(\tilde{f}(\rho, \mu) := f(\rho) - \mu \rho + p(\mu)\), which is the excess free energy density. Next, let \(\Phi \subset H_{0}^{1,2}(\mathbb{R}^d)\) be the subspace of functions in \(H_{0}^{1,2}(\mathbb{R}^d)\) which are compactly supported and fulfil \(\| \Phi\| _{2} = 1\). Introducing \[ \Lambda^U_{\Phi}(\sigma) := \int_{\mathbb{R}^d}(p(\mu + \sigma\Phi^2(x)) - p(\mu)) \,dx \quad (\sigma \in \mathbb{R}) \] the one-dimensional Fenchel-Legendre transform of \(\Lambda^U_{\Phi}\) is denoted with \(\Lambda^{U\ast}_{\Phi}\). Now, the first variational principle is given by \[ I^U(\beta, \lambda) := \inf\left\{ {\| \phi\| _{2}^2 \over 2} + \beta \tau : \phi \in \Phi, \tau \in ]0,p'_{+}(\mu)], \Lambda^{U\ast}_{\phi}(\tau) < \lambda \right\} \] where \(p'_{+}\) denotes the derivative from the right of the pressure \(p\). The second variational quantity is \[ \tilde{I}^U(\beta, \lambda) := \inf\left\{ {\| \phi\| _{2}^2 \over 2} + \beta \int_{\mathbb{R}^d} \rho \phi^2 \,dx : \phi \in \Phi, \rho \in D, \int_{\mathbb{R}^d} \tilde{f}(\rho(x),\mu)\,dx <\lambda\right\} \] where \(D\) denotes the space of all continuous functions \(\rho:\mathbb{R}^d \to ]0,p'_{+}(\mu)]\) which are constant outside a compact set \(K\) with \(\rho(x)\in [p'_{+}(\mu),p'_{+}(\mu)]\) for \(x\in \mathbb{R}^d \backslash K\). Then it is shown that \[ I^U(\beta) = I^U(\beta,d) = \tilde{I}^U(\beta,d) \;. \] Additionally, criteria for the occurrnce of a phase transition are given and, eventually, the author gives estimates from below and from above for \(I^U(\beta)\) depending on the behaviour of the excess free energy density in \(\rho\) in a small neighbourhood to the left of \(\rho_{0} = p'_{-}(\mu)\).