The spectral gap for the Kawasaki dynamics at low temperature

We consider a continuous gas in a d-dimensional rectangular box with a finite range, positive pair potential, and we construct a Markov process in which particles appear and disappear with appropriate rates so that the process is reversible w.r.t. the Gibbs measure. If the thermodynamical paramenters are such that the Gibbs specification satisfies a certain mixing condition, then the spectral gap of the generator is strictly positive uniformly in the volume and boundary condition. The required mixing condition holds if, for instance, there is a convergent cluster expansion.