Alternative adiabatic elimination schemes for fast variables in stochastic processes

We explore an alternative adiabatic elimination scheme for fast variables in stochastic processes, recently proposed by Haake. For the example of a Brownian particle in an external field we determine the reduced evolution operator, and the initial condition that should be used with it, by means of the Chapman-Enskog formalism. We exploit the close analogy between this formalism and the familiar perturbation theory for degenerate energy levels. We conclude that Haake's scheme is less suitable than other schemes already available in the literature for systems close to equilibrium; it may well be preferable far from equilibrium. We briefly discuss a still broader class of elimination procedures and a criterion for choosing between them.