Effect of Energy Degeneracy on the Transition Time for a Series of Metastable States

We consider the problem of metastability for stochastic dynamics with exponentially small transition probabilities in the low temperature limit. We generalize previous model-independent results in several directions. First, we give an estimate of the mixing time of the dynamics in terms of the maximal stability level. Second, assuming the dynamics is reversible, we give an estimate of the associated spectral gap. Third, we give precise asymptotics for the expected transition time from any metastable state to the stable state using potential-theoretic techniques. We do this in a general reversible setting where two or more metastable states are allowed and some of them may even be degenerate. This generalizes previous results that hold for a series of only two metastable states. We then focus on a specific Probabilistic Cellular Automata (PCA) with configuration space $${\mathcal {X}}=\{-1,+1\}^\varLambda $$ X = { - 1 , + 1 } Λ where $$\varLambda \subset {\mathbb {Z}}^2$$ Λ ⊂ Z 2 is a finite box with periodic boundary conditions. We apply our model-independent results to find sharp estimates for the expected transition time from any metastable state in $$\{\underline{-1}, {\underline{c}}^o,{\underline{c}}^e\}$$ { - 1 ̲ , c ̲ o , c ̲ e } to the stable state $$\underline{+1}$$ + 1 ̲ . Here $${\underline{c}}^o,{\underline{c}}^e$$ c ̲ o , c ̲ e denote the odd and the even chessboard respectively. To do this, we identify rigorously the metastable states by giving explicit upper bounds on the stability level of every other configuration. We rely on these estimates to prove a recurrence property of the dynamics, which is a cornerstone of the pathwise approach to metastability.