Spectral formulation and WKB approximation for rare-event statistics in reaction systems

Abstract

We develop a spectral formulation and a stationary WKB approximation for calculating the probabilities of rare events (large deviations from the mean) in systems of reacting particles with infinite-range interaction, describable by a master equation. We compare the stationary WKB approximation with a recent time-dependent semiclassical approximation developed, for the same class of problems, by Elgart and Kamenev. As a benchmark we use an exactly solvable problem of the binary annihilation reaction 2A -> 0.