On metastability in nearly-elastic systems

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Hu, Wenqing

Affiliations: Department of Mathematics, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA. E-mail: huwenqing@math.umd.edu

Abstract: We consider a nearly-elastic model system with one degree of freedom. In each collision with the “wall”, the system can either lose or gain a small amount of energy due to stochastic perturbation. The weak limit of the corresponding slow motion, which is a stochastic process on a graph, is calculated. A large deviation type asymptotics and the metastability of the system are also considered.

Keywords: averaging, large deviations, metastability, Markov processes on graphs, random walk

DOI: 10.3233/ASY-2011-1090

Journal: Asymptotic Analysis, vol. 79, no. 1-2, pp. 65-86, 2012