Exit Probabilities for a Chain of Distributed Control Systems with Small Random Perturbations

In this paper, we consider a diffusion process pertaining to a chain of distributed control systems with small random perturbation. The distributed control system is formed by n subsystems that satisfy an appropriate Hormander condition, i.e., the second subsystem assumes the random perturbation entered into the first subsystem, the third subsystem assumes the random perturbation entered into the first subsystem then was transmitted to the second subsystem and so on, such that the random perturbation propagates through the entire distributed control system. Note that the random perturbation enters only in one of the subsystems and, hence, the diffusion process is degenerate, in the sense that the backward operator associated with it is a degenerate parabolic equation. Our interest is to estimate the exit probability with which a diffusion process (corresponding to a particular subsystem) exits from a given bounded open domain during a certain time interval. The method for such an estimate basically relies on the interpretation of the exit probability function as a value function for a family of stochastic control problems that are associated with the underlying chain of distributed control systems.