Exponential Contraction for Underdamped Langevin Diffusions with Superlinear Forces

Abstract

Underdamped Langevin diffusions model kinetic sampling and thermally driven inertial dynamics, but quantitative convergence is difficult when degenerate noise is coupled with a nonconvex superlinear force. We prove unit-prefactor exponential contraction in an explicit weighted Kantorovich cost under radial confinement, a hypocoercive Lyapunov condition, and \(|\nabla U(x)-\nabla U(y)|\leq L_1(1+|x|^\ell+|y|^\ell)|x-y|\), \(0\leq\ell\leq2\). No smallness condition is imposed on \(L_1\). At the critical exponent \(\ell=2\), a quartic lower bound on \(U\) is used together with an anisotropic position--velocity localization to obtain a nonempty endpoint regime. The proof combines regularized reflection--synchronous coupling, an exponential Lyapunov weight, tightness, and an occupation-time argument at the singular coupling direction. The result yields exponential convergence and uniqueness of the invariant Gibbs measure within the finite-cost class. It covers power-law confining potentials below quartic growth and nonconvex quartic Duffing potentials with cubic force.