arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Lorenzo Bertini.
Errico Presutti was a leading figure in mathematical physics and an important contributor to rigorous results in statistical mechanics. Due to his strong scientific personality and human qualities, there are many who remember Errico Presutti as colleague, mentor, and friend.
We analyse the large time behaviour of the rate function that describes the probability of large fluctuations of an underlying microscopic model associated to the homogeneous Boltzmann equation, such as the Kac walk. We consider in particular the asymptotic of the number of collisions, per particle and per unit of time, and show it exhibits a phase transition in the joint limit in which the number of particles N and the time interval [0,T] diverge. More precisely, due to the existence of Lu-Wennberg solutions, the corresponding limiting rate function vanishes for subtypical values of the number of collisions. We also analyse the second order large deviations showing that the probability of subtypical fluctuations is exponentially small in N, independently on T. As a key point, we establish the controllability of the homogeneous Boltzmann equation.
We consider the $\phi^4_1$ measure in an interval of length $\ell$, defined by a symmetric double-well potential $W$ and inverse temperature $\beta$. Our results concern its asymptotic behavior in the joint limit $\beta, \ell \to \infty$, both in the subcritical regime $\ell \ll \rme^{\beta C_W}$ and in the supercritical regime $\ell \gg \rme^{\beta C_W}$, where $C_W$ denotes the surface tension. In the former case, in which the measure concentrates on the pure phases, we prove the corresponding large deviation principle. The associated rate function is the Modica-Mortola functional modified to take into account the entropy of the locations of the interfaces. Further, we provide the sharp asymptotics of the probability of having a given number of transitions between the two pure phases. In the supercritical regime, the measure does not longer concentrate and we show that the interfaces are asymptotically distributed according to a Poisson point process.
We introduce a class of quantum Markov semigroups describing the evolution of interacting quantum lattice systems, specified either as generic qudits or as fermions. The corresponding generators, which include both conservative and dissipative evolutions, are given by the superposition of local generators in the Lindblad form. Under general conditions, we show that the associated infinite volume dynamics is well defined and can be obtained as the strong limit of the finite volume dynamics. By regarding the interacting evolution as a perturbation of a non-interacting dissipative dynamics, we further obtain a quantitative criterion that yields the ergodicity of the quantum Markov semigroup together with the exponential convergence of local observables. The analysis is based on suitable a priori bounds on the resolvent equation which yield quantitive estimates on the evolution of local observables.
We discuss the quantitative ergodicity of quantum Markov semigroups in terms of the trace distance from the stationary state, providing a general criterion based on the spectral decomposition of the Lindblad generator. We then apply this criterion to the bosonic and fermionic Ornstein-Uhlenbeck semigroups and to a family of quantum Markov semigroups parametrized by semisimple Lie algebras and their irreducible representations, in which the Lindblad generator is given by the adjoint action of the Casimir element.
We consider a diffusion process on $\mathbb R^n$ and prove a large deviation principle for the empirical process in the joint limit in which the time window diverges and the noise vanishes. The corresponding rate function is given by the expectation of the Freidlin-Wentzell functional per unit of time. As an application of this result, we obtain a variational representation of the rate function for the Gallavotti-Cohen observable in the small noise and large time limits.
Weak solutions to the homogeneous Boltzmann equation with increasing energy have been constructed by Lu and Wennberg. We consider an underlying microscopic stochastic model with binary collision (Kac's model) and show that these solutions are atypical. More precisely, we prove that the probability of observing these paths is exponentially small in the number of particles and compute the exponential rate. This result is obtained by improving the established large deviation estimates in the canonical setting. Key ingredients are the extension of Sanov's theorem to the microcanonical ensemble and large deviations for the Kac's model in the microcanonical setting.
We analyze the large deviations for a discrete energy Kac-like walk. In particular, we exhibit a path, with probability exponentially small in the number of particles, that looses energy.
We consider the weakly asymmetric exclusion process on the $d$-dimensional torus. We prove a large deviations principle for the time averaged empirical density and current in the joint limit in which both the time interval and the number of particles diverge. This result is obtained both by analyzing the variational convergence, as the number of particles diverges, of the Donsker-Varadhan functional for the empirical process and by considering the large time behavior of the hydrodynamical rate function. The large deviations asymptotic of the time averaged current is then deduced by contraction principle. The structure of the minimizers of this variational problem corresponds to the possible occurrence of dynamical phase transitions.
We introduce a Kac's type walk whose rate of binary collisions preserves the total momentum but not the kinetic energy. In the limit of large number of particles we describe the dynamics in terms of empirical measure and flow, proving the corresponding large deviation principle. The associated rate function has an explicit expression. As a byproduct of this analysis, we provide a gradient flow formulation of the Boltzmann-Kac equation.
We introduce a gradient flow formulation of linear Boltzmann equations. Under a diffusive scaling we derive a diffusion equation by using the machinery of gradient flows.
We discuss the sharp interface limit of the action functional associated to either the Glauber dynamics for Ising systems with Kac potentials or the Glauber+Kawasaki process. The corresponding limiting functionals, for which we provide explicit formulae of the mobility and transport coefficients, describe the large deviations asymptotics with respect to the mean curvature flow.
We introduce a class of stochastic Allen-Cahn equations with a mobility coefficient and colored noise. For initial data with finite free energy, we analyze the corresponding Cauchy problem on the $d$-dimensional torus in the time interval $[0,T]$. Assuming that $d\le 3$ and that the potential has quartic growth, we prove existence and uniqueness of the solution as a process $u$ in $L^2$ with continuous paths, satisfying almost surely the regularity properties $u\in C([0,T]; H^1)$ and $u\in L^2([0,T];H^2)$.
Consider the Allen-Cahn equation on the $d$-dimensional torus, $d=2,3$, in the sharp interface limit. As it is well known, the limiting dynamics is described by the motion by mean curvature of the interface between the two stable phases. Here, we analyze a stochastic perturbation of the Allen-Cahn equation and describe its large deviation asymptotics in a joint sharp interface and small noise limit. Relying on previous results on the variational convergence of the action functional, we prove the large deviation upper bound. The corresponding rate function is finite only when there exists a time evolving interface of codimension one between the two stable phases. The zero level set of this rate function is given by the evolution by mean curvature in the sense of Brakke. Finally, the rate function can be written in terms of the sum of two non-negative quantities: the first measures how much the velocity of the interface deviates from its mean curvature, while the second is due to the possible occurrence of nucleation events.
We consider a gas of independent Brownian particles on a bounded interval in contact with two particle reservoirs at the endpoints. Due to the Brownian nature of the particles, infinitely many particles enter and leave the system in each time interval. Nonetheless, the dynamics can be constructed as a Markov process with continuous paths on a suitable space. If $λ_0$ and $λ_1$ are the chemical potentials of the boundary reservoirs, the stationary distribution (reversible if and only if $λ_0=λ_1$) is a Poisson point process with intensity given by the linear interpolation between $λ_0$ and $λ_1$. We then analyze the empirical flow that it is defined by counting, in a time interval $[0,t]$, the net number of particles crossing a given point $x$. In the stationary regime we identify its statistics and show that it is given, apart an $x$ dependent correction that is bounded for large $t$, by the difference of two independent Poisson processes with parameters $λ_0$ and $λ_1$.
We consider a class of continuous time Markov chains on a compact metric space that admit an invariant measure strictly positive on open sets together with absorbing states. We prove the joint large deviation principle for the empirical measure and flow. Due to the lack of uniform ergodicity, the zero level set of the rate function is not a singleton. As corollaries, we obtain the Donsker-Varadhan rate function for the empirical measure and a variational expression of the rate function for the empirical flow.
Stationary non-equilibrium states describe steady flows through macroscopic systems. Although they represent the simplest generalization of equilibrium states, they exhibit a variety of new phenomena. Within a statistical mechanics approach, these states have been the subject of several theoretical investigations, both analytic and numerical. The macroscopic fluctuation theory, based on a formula for the probability of joint space-time fluctuations of thermodynamic variables and currents, provides a unified macroscopic treatment of such states for driven diffusive systems. We give a detailed review of this theory including its main predictions and most relevant applications.
We consider a continuous time Markov chain on a countable state space and prove a joint large deviation principle for the empirical measure and the empirical flow, which accounts for the total number of jumps between pairs of states. We give a direct proof using tilting and an indirect one by contraction from the empirical process.