Consider a family of probability measures $\{\mu_y : y \in
\partial D\}$ on a bounded open domain $D\subset R^d$ with smooth
boundary.
For any starting point $x \in D$, we run a
a standard $d$-dimensional Brownian motion $B(t) \in R^d $ until it first
exits $D$ at time $\tau$,
at which time it jumps to a point in the domain $D$ according to the
measure $\mu_{B(\tau)}$ at the exit time,
and starts the Brownian motion afresh. The same evolution is repeated
independently each time the process reaches the boundary.
The resulting diffusion process is called Brownian motion with jump
boundary (BMJ).
The spectral gap of non-self-adjoint generator of BMJ, which describes the
exponential
rate of convergence to the invariant measure, is studied.
The main analytic tool is Fourier transforms with only real zeros.
I will first briefly review the classical,
"Becker-Doring" (BD) theory of nucleation and describe
the solution of the discrete time-dependent BD equation.
Then, I will discuss low-temperature nucleation in a
two-dimensional Ising system driven by Glauber/Metropolis
dynamics. Here, accurate values of the nucleation rate can
be derived and used to assess the phenomenological BD
picture.
Suppose f , g ? L?(0, 1); let F1 , . . . , FN be ?-algebras of Borel sets in [0, 1].
Put f0 = f and fj = E(f{j ?1} |Fj ), j = 1, 2, . . . , N . The function f is transformable into g, if for any ? > 0 there exist N and such ?-algebras F1 , . . . , FN that fN ? g
The region between two vertical parallel glass plates is filled with fuel.
A reaction is initiated whose combustion product is lighter than the fuel.
I'll informally present some stability results for Jingyi Zhu's Hele-Shaw
model for the evolution of a boundary curve of the reaction region. The
normal velocity is the sum of the combustion effect depending on the
curvature of the curve plus the nonlocal buouyancy effect due to pressure.
This model admits a simple treatment, viewing the evolution as a
perturbation of curvature flow.