A central limit theorem for the effective conductance: linear boundary data and small ellipticity contrasts (Q2016049)

The principal results of this work belongs to the class of homogenization problems, which are sufficiently important not only from mathematical but from the physical point of view since they provide a background to the usage of continual macroscopic equations instead of detailed consideration of complex microscopic processes. Here the effective conductance defined via the total electric current through the network of resistors at the condition of fixed boundary voltage is considered for the case of slightly random fluctuations of local microscopic conductances. The principal results is the fact that the asymptotic effective conductance admits the Gaussian distribution when the box size tends to infinity, i.e. a kind of central limit theorem for the electrodynamical problem. The important assumption is the Dirichlet boundary conditions stated for the box. This importance is provided by a clear physical naturality of the situation (in contrast to the previously known cases of periodic boundary conditions). The proof is based on a martingale approximation, stationary edge ordering and the introduced finite-volume harmonic coordinates.