Asymptotics of the spectral gap with applications to the theory of simulated annealing (Q919361)

Let \(M^ n\) be a compact connected Riemannian manifold and let \(u\in C^{\infty}(M)\). Let \({\mathcal L}_{\beta}=-e^{\beta u}\circ \nabla \circ e^{-\beta u}\circ \nabla\) be a self-adjoint non-negative operator on \(C^{\infty}(M)\). Let \(\lambda\) (\(\beta\)) be the size of the gap between 0 and the rest of the spectrum of \({\mathcal L}_{\beta}\). The authors define a constant m and show \[ \lim_{\beta \to \infty}\beta^{-1}\cdot \log \quad \lambda (\beta)=-m. \] They relate \(m^{-1}\) to the optimal freezing schedule for simulated annealing processes built on the operators \({\mathcal L}_{\beta}\).