Helical magnetic fields and semi-classical asymptotics of the lowest eigenvalue

Abstract

We study the three-dimensional Neumann magnetic Laplacian in the presence of a semiclassical parameter and a non-uniform magnetic field with constant intensity. We determine a sharp two term asymptotics for the lowest eigenvalue, where the second term involves a quantity related to the magnetic field and the geometry of the domain. In the special case of the unit ball and a helical magnetic field, the concentration takes place on two symmetric points of the unit sphere.