  We study intermittent maps from the point of view of metastability. Small
neighbourhoods of an intermittent fixed point and their complements form pairs
of almost-invariant sets. Treating the small neighbourhood as a hole, we first
show that the absolutely continuous conditional invariant measures (ACCIMs)
converge to the ACIM as the length of the small neighbourhood shrinks to zero.
We then quantify how the escape dynamics from these almost-invariant sets are
connected with the second eigenfunctions of Perron-Frobenius (transfer)
operators when a small perturbation is applied near the intermittent fixed
point. In particular, we describe precisely the scaling of the second
eigenvalue with the perturbation size, provide upper and lower bounds, and
demonstrate $L^1$ convergence of the positive part of the second eigenfunction
to the ACIM as the perturbation goes to zero. This perturbation and associated
eigenvalue scalings and convergence results are all compatible with Ulam's
method and provide a formal explanation for the numerical behaviour of Ulam's
method in this nonuniformly hyperbolic setting. The main results of the paper
are illustrated with numerical computations.
