Short and long time behavior of the Fokker-Planck equation in a confining potential and applications

We consider the linear Fokker-Planck equation in a confining potential in space dimension $d \geq 3$. Using spectral methods, we prove bounds on the derivatives of the solution for short and long time, and give some applications.Comment: corrected version of the outdated article "Uniform bounds and exponential time decay results for the Vlasov-Poisson-Fokker-Planck system

Anisotropic hypoelliptic estimates for Landau-type operators

We establish global hypoelliptic estimates for linear Landau-type operators. Linear Landau-type equations are a class of inhomogeneous kinetic equations with anisotropic diffusion whose study is motivated by the linearization of the Landau equation near the Maxwellian distribution. By introducing a microlocal method by multiplier which can be adapted to various hypoelliptic kinetic equations, we establish for linear Landau-type operators optimal global hypoelliptic estimates with loss of 4/3 derivatives in a Sobolev scale which is exactly related to the anisotropy of the diffusion.Comment: 44 page

Tunnel effect for Kramers-Fokker-Planck type operators

We consider operators of Kramers-Fokker-Planck type in the semi-classical limit such that the exponent of the associated Maxwellian is a Morse function with two local minima and a saddle point. Under suitable additional assumptions we establish the complete asymptotics of the exponentially small splitting between the first two eigenvalues.Comment: 77 page

Tunnel effect for Kramers-Fokker-Planck type operators: return to equilibrium and applications

In the first part of this work, we consider second order supersymmetric differential operators in the semiclassical limit, including the Kramers-Fokker-Planck operator, such that the exponent of the associated Maxwellian $\phi$ is a Morse function with two local minima and one saddle point. Under suitable additional assumptions of dynamical nature, we establish the long time convergence to the equilibrium for the associated heat semigroup, with the rate given by the first non-vanishing, exponentially small, eigenvalue. In the second part of the paper, we consider the case when the function $\phi$ has precisely one local minimum and one saddle point. We also discuss further examples of supersymmetric operators, including the Witten Laplacian and the infinitesimal generator for the time evolution of a chain of classical anharmonic oscillators

Semiclassical analysis for the Kramers-Fokker-Planck equation

We study some accurate semiclassical resolvent estimates for operators that are neither selfadjoint nor elliptic, and applications to the Cauchy problem. In particular we get a precise description of the spectrum near the imaginary axis and precise resolvent estimates inside the pseudo-spectrum. We apply our results to the Kramers-Fokker-Planck operator