Varadhan's integration theorem, one of the corner stones of large-deviation theory, is generalized to the context of capacities. The theorem appears valid for any integral that obeys four linearity properties. We introduce a collection of integrals that have these properties. Of one of them, known as the Choquet integral, some continuity properties are established as well.
A variational formula for positive functionals of a Poisson random measure and brownian motion is proved. The formula is based on the relative entropy representation for exponential integrals, and can be used to prove large deviation type estimates. A general large deviation result is proved, and illustrated with an example.
We give a new proof, relying on polynomial inequalities and some aspects of potential theory, of large deviation results for ensembles of random hermitian matrices.