  The slow processes of metastable stochastic dynamical systems are difficult
to access by direct numerical simulation due the sampling problem. Here, we
suggest an approach for modeling the slow parts of Markov processes by
approximating the dominant eigenfunctions and eigenvalues of the propagator. To
this end, a variational principle is derived that is based on the maximization
of a Rayleigh coefficient. It is shown that this Rayleigh coefficient can be
estimated from statistical observables that can be obtained from short
distributed simulations starting from different parts of state space. The
approach forms a basis for the development of adaptive and efficient
computational algorithms for simulating and analyzing metastable Markov
processes while avoiding the sampling problem. Since any stochastic process
with finite memory can be transformed into a Markov process, the approach is
applicable to a wide range of processes relevant for modeling complex
real-world phenomena.
