An Efficient Laguerre Minimum Action Method for Computing Quasi-Potentials

Abstract

Minimum action methods provide a powerful framework for analyzing rare transitions in small-noise-driven dynamical systems, but their practical performance is often limited by time truncation and parameter sensitivity in infinite-horizon problems. In this paper, we develop an efficient Laguerre spectral minimum action method (LMAM) for computing quasi-potentials associated with fixed points of dynamical systems. Based on the large deviation framework, the method computes minimum action paths by formulating the problem on a semi-infinite time interval and discretize the temporal direction using Laguerre functions. An appropriate time rescaling strategy is proposed to enhance accuracy and convergence of the Laguerre spectral approximation. To efficiently handle nonlinear terms, we employ an improved procedure for evaluating Laguerre--Gauss--Radau quadrature, which enables stable and accurate double-precision computations with a large number of Laguerre modes. Precise numerical analysis for the linear problem and a local result for the nonlinear case are developed. Numerical experiments including both ordinary and partial differential equations (Allen-Cahn and Navier-Stokes) are presented to illustrate the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed method.