Essential spectral radius for Markov semigroups (I): discrete time case

Using two new measures of non-compactness (P) and _w (P) for a positive kernel P on a Polish space E, we obtain a new formula of Nussbaum-Gelfand type for the essential spectral radius r _ess (P) on b. Using that formula we show that different known sufficient conditions for geometric ergodicity such as Doeblins condition, drift condition by means of Lyapunov function, geometric recurrence etc lead to variational formulas of the essential spectral radius. All those can be easily transported on the weighted space b _u . Some related results on L ² () are also obtained, especially in the symmetric case. Moreover we prove that for a strongly Feller and topologically transitive Markov kernel, the large deviation principle of Donsker-Varadhan for occupation measures of the associated Markov process holds if and only if the essential spectral radius is zero; this result allows us to show that the sufficient condition of Donsker-Varadhan for the large deviation principle is in fact necessary. The knowledge of r _ess (P) allows us to estimate eigenvalues of P in L ² in the symmetric case, and to estimate the geometric convergence rate by means of that in the metric of Wasserstein. Applications to different concrete models are provided for illustrating those general results. Mathematics Subject Classification (2000):60J05, 60F10, 47A10, 47D07