Spectral gap for the interchange process in a box

Abstract

We show that the spectral gap for the interchange process (and the symmetric exclusion process) in a $d$-dimensional box of side length $L$ is asymptotic to $π^2/L^2$. This gives more evidence in favor of Aldous's conjecture that in any graph the spectral gap for the interchange process is the same as the spectral gap for a corresponding continuous-time random walk. Our proof uses a technique that is similar to that used by Handjani and Jungreis, who proved that Aldous's conjecture holds when the graph is a tree.