Spectral gap of positive operators and applications (Q2489997)

The authors consider a non-quasi-nilpotent positive operator \(\pi\) on \(L^p(E,\mu)\) (\(1<p<\infty\)), where \(E\) is a Polish space equipped with a probability measure \(\mu\). They characterize the existence of a spectral gap of \(\pi\) in terms of a tail norm condition and a uniformly positive improving property. In this way, they generalize results of Hino and of the second author about the existence of ground states, the Perron--Frobeniuous theorem, and the finiteness of invariant ergodic measures in the Markov case. Moreover, they extend L.~Gross' theorem. As applications, they study the spectral gap of the Feynman--Kac and Girsanov semigroups.