Hypocoercivity and metastability of degenerate KFP equations at low temperature

Abstract: We consider Kramers-Fokker-Planck operators with general degenerate coefficients. We prove semiclassical hypocoercivity estimates for a large class of such operators. Then, we manage to prove Eyring-Kramers formulas for the bottom of the spectrum of some particular degenerate operators in the semiclassical regime, and quantify the spectral gap separating these eigenvalues from the rest of the spectrum. The main ingredient is the construction of sharp Gaussian quasimodes through an adaptation of the WKB method.