Metastability and small eigenvalues in Markov chains
  In this letter we announce rigorous results that elucidate the relation between metastable states and low-lying eigenvalues in Markov chains in a much more general setting and with considerable greater precision as was so far available. This includes a sharp uncertainty principle relating all low-lying eigenvalues to mean times of metastable transitions, a relation between the support of eigenfunctions and the attractor of a metastable state, and sharp estimates on the convergence of probability distribution of the metastable transition times to the exponential distribution. 
A. Bovier (WIAS), M. Eckhoff (Univ. of Potsdam), V. Gayrard (EPFL), M.   Klein (Univ. of Potsdam)