Quantification of ergodicity in stochastic homogenization: Optimal bounds via spectral gap on Glauber dynamics

Abstract

We study quantitatively the effective large-scale behavior of discrete elliptic equations on the lattice Zd with random coefficients. The theory of stochastic homogenization relates the random, stationary, and ergodic field of coefficients with a deterministic matrix of effective coefficients. This is done via the corrector problem, which can be viewed as a highly degenerate elliptic equation on the infinite-dimensional space of admissible coefficient fields. In this contribution we develop new quantitative methods for the corrector problem based on the assumption that ergodicity holds in the quantitative form of a Spectral Gap Estimate w. r. t. a Glauber dynamics on coefficient fields |as it is the case for independent and identically distributed coefficients. As a main result we prove an optimal decay in time of the semigroup associated with the corrector problem (i. e. of the generator of the process called "random environment as seen from the particle").