Optimal response for stochastic differential equations in $\mathbb{T}^d$ with perturbations on the drift term

Abstract

We study stochastic differential equations on the $d$-dimensional flat torus $\mathbb{T}^d$ with drift and perturbation coefficients in $L^{\infty}(\mathbb{T}^d;\mathbb{R}^d)$ and additive non-degenerate noise. For the associated transfer operators, we analyse the dependence of the stationary measure and of the expectation of a given observable on small perturbations of the drift. In this framework, we prove a linear response formula for the invariant density and for the expectation of a given observable. We then address an optimal response problem, namely the determination of admissible perturbations that maximise the first-order variation of a prescribed observable. We establish existence of optimal perturbations and, in a Hilbert space framework, prove uniqueness and provide an explicit characterisation of the optimiser. This yields a practical Fourier-based numerical method, which we implement in several numerical examples, including both low and high-dimensional settings.