Large deviations for the contact process and two dimensional percolation

Summary The following results are proved: 1) For the upper invariant measure of the basic one-dimensional supercritical contact process the density of 1's has the usual large deviation behavior: the probability of a large deviation decays exponentially with the number of sites considered. 2) For supercritical two-dimensional nearest neighbor site (or bond) percolation the densityY of sites inside a square which belong to the infinite cluster has the following large deviation properties. The probability thatY deviates from its expected value by a positive amount decays exponentially with the area of , while the probability that it deviates from its expected value by a negative amount decays exponentially with the perimeter of . These two problems are treated together in this paper because similar techniques (renormalization) are used for both.Partially supported by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Army Research Office through the Mathematical Sciences Institute at CornellPartially supported by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico-CNPq (Brazil) and the U.S. Army Research Office through the Mathematical Sciences Institute at Cornell     

Asymptotic behavior of basic contact process with rapid stirring

In this paper we consider the basic contact process with infection rate λ and stirring rateD. We study the asymptotic behavior of the critical value and survival probability asD→∞.     

The weak survival/strong survival phase transition for the contact process on a homogeneous tree

The contact process on a homogeneous tree of degree 3 or larger is known to have two survival phases: weak and strong. In the weak survival phase, the "Malthusian parameter" (the Hausdorff dimension of the set of ends of the tree in which the infection survives) is less than half the Hausdorff dimension of the entire boundary. It is shown that if the expected infection time of a vertex is bounded by a constant times the probability of infection, then the critical exponent for the Malthusian parameter is at least 1/2. Received: 30 June 2002     

A mean field limit of the contact process with large range

Summary A mean field limit of the contact process is obtained as the rangeM approaches . Fluctuations about the deterministic limit are identified as a Generalized Ornstein Uhlenbeck process.Research supported in part by the Army Research Office through the Mathematical Sciences Institute at Cornell University and by NSF Grant: DMS 8902152     

The asymmetric multitype contact process

We study the multitype contact process on ${\mathbb{Z}}^d$ under the assumption that one of the types has a birth rate that is larger than that of the other type, and larger than the critical value of the standard contact process. We prove that, if initially present, the stronger type has a positive probability of never going extinct. Conditionally on this event, it takes over a ball of radius growing linearly in time. We also completely characterize the set of stationary distributions of the process and prove a complete convergence theorem.     

The critical contact process seen from the right edge

Summary Durrett (1984) proved the existence of an invariant measure for the critical and supercritical contact process seen from the right edge. Galves and Presutti (1987) proved, in the supercritical case, that the invariant measure was unique, and convergence to it held starting in any semi-infinite initial state. We prove the same for the critical contact process. We also prove that the process starting with one particle, conditioned to survive until timet, converges to the unique invariant measure ast.Partially supported by the National Science FoundationPartially supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Security Agency, and the Army Research Office through the Mathematical Sciences Institute at Cornell University     

The contact process on finite homogeneous trees

Let ? _d be a homogeneous tree in which every vertex has d + 1 neighbours, where d≥ 2. The contact process on such a tree is known to have three distinct phases. We consider the process on a finite subtree, namely the rooted tree of depth h and branching factor d, and relate the behaviour of the process on the infinite tree to its behaviour on the finite tree for large h. In the phase of strong survival, we show that with probability ɛ independent of h, the process on the subtree starting from a single infection survives for a time which is doubly exponential in h and almost exponential in the number of vertices of the finite tree. In the phase of weak survival on the infinite tree, the survival time on the finite tree is approximately linear in h. In the phase of no survival, the survival time on the finite tree is linear in h if one starts with all vertices initially infected, and bounded by a random variable (independent of h) with an exponential tail if one starts from a single infection. Received: 14 April 2000 / Revised version: 6 January 2001 / Published online: 9 October 2001     

Exponential convergence for one dimensional contact processes

The complete convergence theorem implies that starting from any initial distribution the one dimensional contact process converges to a limit ast. In this paper we give a necessary and sufficient condition on the initial distribution for the convergence to occur with exponential rapidity.This work was discussed while the authors were visiting the Nankai Mathematics Institute in Tianjin.Partially supported by the National Science Foundation, the Army Research Office through the Mathematical Sciences Institute at Cornell University, and a Guggenheim fellowship.Research supported by the National Science Foundation of China.     

The threshold contact process: A continuum limit

Summary In the threshold contact process on thed-dimensional integer lattice with ranger, healthy sites become infected at rate if they have at least one infectedr-neighbour, and recover at rate 1. We show that the critical value _c (r) is asymptotic tor ^–d _c asr, where _c is the critical value of the birth rate for a continuum threshold contact process which may be described in terms of an oriented continuous percolation model driven by a Poisson process of rate ind+1 dimensions. We have bounds of 0.7320 < _c < 3 ford=1.     

Some basic inequalities in higher dimensional non-Euclid space

In this paper, the concept of a finite mass-points system∑N(H(A))(N>n) being in a sphere in an n-dimensional hyperbolic space Hn and a finite mass-points system∑N(S(A))(N>n) being in a hyperplane in an n-dimensional spherical space Sn is introduced, then, the rank of the Cayley-Menger matrix AN(H)(or a AN(S)) of the finite mass-points system∑∑N(S(A))(or∑N(S(A))) in an n-dimensional hyperbolic space Hn (or spherical space Sn) is no more than n 2 when∑N(H(A))(N>n) (or∑N(S(A))(N>n)) are in a sphere (or hyperplane). On the one hand, the Yang-Zhang's inequalities, the Neuberg-Pedoe's inequalities and the inequality of the metric addition in an n-dimensional hyperbolic space Hn and in an n-dimensional spherical space Sn are established by the method of characteristic roots. These are basic inequalities in hyperbolic geometry and spherical geometry. On the other hand, some relative problems and conjectures are brought.     

Weak and strong fillability of higher dimensional contact manifolds

For contact manifolds in dimension three, the notions of weak and strong symplectic fillability and tightness are all known to be inequivalent. We extend these facts to higher dimensions: in particular, we define a natural generalization of weak fillings and prove that it is indeed weaker (at least in dimension five), while also being obstructed by all known manifestations of “overtwistedness”. We also find the first examples of contact manifolds in all dimensions that are not symplectically fillable but also cannot be called overtwisted in any reasonable sense. These depend on a higher dimensional analogue of Giroux torsion, which we define via the existence in all dimensions of exact symplectic manifolds with disconnected contact boundary.     

On the empirical distribution of eigenvalues of large dimensional information-plus-noise-type matrices

Let X_n be n×N containing i.i.d. complex entries and unit variance (sum of variances of real and imaginary parts equals 1), σ>0 constant, and R_n an n×N random matrix independent of X_n. Assume, almost surely, as n→∞, the empirical distribution function (e.d.f.) of the eigenvalues of converges in distribution to a nonrandom probability distribution function (p.d.f.), and the ratio tends to a positive number. Then it is shown that, almost surely, the e.d.f. of the eigenvalues of converges in distribution. The limit is nonrandom and is characterized in terms of its Stieltjes transform, which satisfies a certain equation.     

Four‐dimensional contact ‐submanifolds in

The analogue of ‐submanifolds in (almost) Kählerian manifolds is the concept of contact ‐submanifolds in Sasakian manifolds. These are submanifolds for which the structure vector field ξ is tangent to the submanifold and for which the tangent bundle of M can be decomposed as , where is invariant with respect to the endomorphism φ and is antiinvariant with respect to φ. The lowest possible dimension for M in which this decomposition is non trivial is the dimension 4. In this paper we obtain a complete classification of four‐dimensional contact ‐submanifolds in and for which the second fundamental form restricted to and vanishes identically.     

Generalized Ricci curvature bounds for three dimensional contact subriemannian manifolds

Measure contraction property is one of the possible generalizations of Ricci curvature bound to more general metric measure spaces. In this paper, we discover necessary and sufficient conditions for a three dimensional contact subriemannian manifold to satisfy this property.     

The limiting spectral distribution function of large dimensional random matrices of sample covariance type

Results on the analytic behavior of the limiting spectral distribution of matrices of sample covariance type, studied in Marcěnko and Pastur [2], are derived. Using the Stieltjes transform, it is shown that the limiting distrbution has a continuous derivative away from zero, the derivative being analytic whenever it is positive, and the behavior of it resembles the behavior of a square root function near the boundary of its support.