Multipliers and centralizers (Banach spaces)

From formulasearchengine
Revision as of 10:21, 5 December 2013 by en>LokiClock (Definitions: Unpack the definition.)
(diff) ← Older revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
Jump to navigation Jump to search

In mathematics, Laplace's principle is a basic theorem in large deviations theory, similar to Varadhan's lemma. It gives an asymptotic expression for the Lebesgue integral of exp(−θφ(x)) over a fixed set A as θ becomes large. Such expressions can be used, for example, in statistical mechanics to determining the limiting behaviour of a system as the temperature tends to absolute zero.

Statement of the result

Let A be a Lebesgue-measurable subset of d-dimensional Euclidean space Rd and let φ : Rd → R be a measurable function with

Aeφ(x)dx<+.

Then

limθ+1θlogAeθφ(x)dx=essinfxAφ(x),

where ess inf denotes the essential infimum. Heuristically, this may be read as saying that for large θ,

Aeθφ(x)dxexp(θessinfxAφ(x)).

Application

The Laplace principle can be applied to the family of probability measures Pθ given by

Pθ(A)=(Aeθφ(x)dx)/(Rdeθφ(y)dy)

to give an asymptotic expression for the probability of some set/event A as θ becomes large. For example, if X is a standard normally distributed random variable on R, then

limε0εlogP[εXA]=essinfxAx22

for every measurable set A.

References