Tunneling for a class of difference operators (Q443166)

The authors analyze a general class of difference operators \(H_\varepsilon = T_\varepsilon + V_\varepsilon\) on \(\ell^2((\varepsilon {\mathbb{Z}})^d)\), where \(V_\varepsilon\) is a multi-well potential and \(\varepsilon\) is a small parameter. They decouple the wells by introducing certain Dirichlet operators on regions containing only one potential well, and the authors treat the eigenvalue problem for \(H_\varepsilon\) as a small perturbation of these comparison problems. They describe the tunneling by a certain interaction matrix, similar to the analysis for the Schrödinger operator, and estimate the remainder, which is exponentially small and roughly quadratic compared with the interaction matrix.