Properties of the limit shape for some last-passage growth models in random environments

We study directed last-passage percolation on the planar square lattice whose weights have general distributions, or equivalently, queues in series with general service distributions. Each row of the last-passage model has its own randomly chosen weight distribution. We investigate the limiting time constant close to the boundary of the quadrant. Close to the y-axis, where the number of random distributions averaged over stays large, the limiting time constant takes the same universal form as in the homogeneous model. But close to the x-axis we see the effect of the tail of the distribution of the random environment.     

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.     

Central limit theorem for a tagged particle in asymmetric simple exclusion

We prove a functional central limit theorem for the position of a tagged particle in the one-dimensional asymmetric simple exclusion process for hyperbolic scaling, starting from a Bernoulli product measure conditioned to have a particle at the origin. We also prove that the position of the tagged particle at time t$t$ depends on the initial configuration, through the number of empty sites in the interval [0,(p−q)αt]$[0,(p-q)\alpha t]$ divided by α$\alpha$, on the hyperbolic time scale and on a longer time scale, namely N^4/3$N^{4/3}$.     

The scaling limit for a stochastic PDE and the separation of phases

Summary We investigate the problem of singular perturbation for a reaction-diffusion equation with additive noise (or a stochastic partial differential equation of Ginzburg-Landau type) under the situation that the reaction term is determined by a potential with double-wells of equal depth. As the parameter (the temperature of the system) tends to 0, the solution converges to one of the two stable phases and consequently the phase separation is formed in the limit. We derive a stochastic differential equation which describes the random movement of the phase separation point. The proof consists of two main steps. We show that the solution stays near a manifoldM of minimal energy configurations based on a Lyapunov type argument. Then, the limit equation is identified by introducing a nice coordinate system in a neighborhood ofM .Research partially supported by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science     

A central limit theorem for solutions of the porous medium equation

We study the large–time behavior of the second moment (energy) for the flow of a gas in a N-dimensional porous medium with initial density v₀(x) 0. The density v(x, t) satisfies the nonlinear degenerate parabolic equation v_t = v^m where m > 1 is a physical constant. Assuming that for some > 0, we prove that E(t) behaves asymptotically, as t , like the energy E_B(t) of the Barenblatt-Pattle solution B(|x|, t). This is shown by proving that E(t)/E_B(t) converges to 1 at the (optimal) rate t^{–2/(N(m-1)+2)}. A simple corollary of this result is a central limit theorem for the scaled solution E(t)^N/2v(E(t)^1/2x, t).     

On some growth models with a small parameter

Summary We consider the behavior of the asymptotic speed of growth and the asymptotic shape in some growth models, when a certain parameter becomes small. The basic example treated is the variant of Richardson's growth model on ^d in which each site which is not yet occupied becomes occupied at rate 1 if it has at least two occupied neighbors, at rate 1 if it has exactly 1 occupied neighbor and, of course, at rate 0 if it has no occupied neighbor. Occupied sites remain occupied forever. Starting from a single occupied site, this model has asymptotic speeds of growth in each direction (as time goes to infinity) and these speeds determine an asymptotic shape in the usual sense. It is proven that as tends to 0, the asymptotic speeds scale as ^1/d and the asymptotic shape, when renormalized by dividing it by ^1/d , converges to a cube. Other similar models which are partially oriented are also studied.The work of R.H.S. was supported by the N.S.F. through grant DMS 91-00725. In addition, both authors were supported by the Newton Institute in Cambridge. The authors thank the Newton Institute for its support and hospitality     

Hierarchical models of interacting diffusions: Multiple time scale phenomena,phase transition and pattern of cluster-formation

Summary The purpose of this paper is to explore the connection between multiple space-time scale behaviour for block averages and phase transitions, respectively formation of clusters, in infinite systems with locally interacting components. The essential object is the associated Markov chain which describes the joint distribution of the block averages at different time scales. A fixed-point and stability property of a particular dynamical system under a renormalisation procedure is used to explain this pattern of cluster formation and the fact that the longtime behaviour is universal in entire classes of evolutions.     

Inclusion-exclusion and point processes

A combinatorial (inclusion-exclusion) approach to the construction of point processes starting from densities is proposed. A formal sufficient crifficient criterion is derived and then applied with positive results to systems of functions having a special product form. Thus, a new class of point processes is derived to play a role within classical Gibbs processes.     

Two scales hydrodynamic limit for a model of malignant tumor cells

We consider a model introduced in [S. Luckhaus, L. Triolo, The continuum reaction-diffusion limit of a stochastic cellular growth model, Rend. Acc. Lincei (S.9) 15 (2004) 215-223] with two species (η and ξ) of particles, representing respectively malignant and normal cells. The basic motions of the η particles are independent random walks, scaled diffusively. The ξ particles move on a slower time scale and obey an exclusion rule among themselves and with the η particles. The competition between the two species is ruled by a coupled birth and death process. We prove convergence in the hydrodynamic limit to a system of two reaction-diffusion equations with measure valued initial data.     

Hydrodynamic limit for a spin system on a multidimensional lattice

Summary The hydrodynamic limit for a Markov process of [0, )-valued spin fields on a periodic multidimensional lattice is studied. In the process a positive real number, called energy, is attached to each site of the lattice and each couple of adjacent sites exchange thier energy by random amounts at random times. The law of the exchange is such that the sum of the total energy is conserved, and that the process is reversible and of gradient type for the energy distribution. We show that under diffusion type scaling of space and time, the macroscopic energy distribution converges to a deterministic limit which is characterized by a non-linear diffusion equation /t=2^–1P(), whereP is an increasing function which in a typical case equals const·².     

Onset and structure of interfaces in a Kawasaki+Glauber interacting particle system

Summary We investigate the spatial structure of typical configurations of a reaction-diffusion spin system (Kawasaki+Glauber model), following the noise induced escape from an unstable spatially homogeneous state. After the escape, the system will be locally in a stationary phase, but will display a globally nontrivial spatial behavior, characterized by large clusters of the (two) different phases. The system can be spatially rescaled according to the typical linear dimension of the clusters and, on this space scale, regions of the opposite phases are separated by smooth (hyper) surfaces, called interfaces. The location of the interfaces is determined by means of the zero-level set of the trajectories of a Gaussian random field. This paper is devoted primarily to the characterization of the structure which appears on a finer scale (the hydrodynamical one) at the interface. A better understanding of the dynamics of the escape (especially in its last and nonlinear stage) leads to substantial improvements of the results in [7, 12].This research has been partly supported by NSF grant DMR 92-13424 and by a CNR fellowship     

A local limit theorem for random walks conditioned to stay positive

We consider a real random walk S_n=X₁+...+X_n attracted (without centering) to the normal law: this means that for a suitable norming sequence a_n we have the weak convergence S_n/a_n⇒ϕ(x)dx, ϕ(x) being the standard normal density. A local refinement of this convergence is provided by Gnedenko's and Stone's Local Limit Theorems, in the lattice and nonlattice case respectively. Now let denote the event (S₁>0,...,S_n>0) and let S_n⁺ denote the random variable S_n conditioned on : it is known that S_n⁺/a_n ↠ ϕ⁺(x) dx, where ϕ⁺(x):=x exp (−x²/2)1_(x≥0). What we establish in this paper is an equivalent of Gnedenko's and Stone's Local Limit Theorems for this weak convergence. We also consider the particular case when X₁ has an absolutely continuous law: in this case the uniform convergence of the density of S_n⁺/a_n towards ϕ⁺(x) holds under a standard additional hypothesis, in analogy to the classical case. We finally discuss an application of our main results to the asymptotic behavior of the joint renewal measure of the ladder variables process. Unlike the classical proofs of the LLT, we make no use of characteristic functions: our techniques are rather taken from the so–called Fluctuation Theory for random walks.     

Slow and fast scales for superprocess limits of age-structured populations

A superprocess limit for an interacting birth-death particle system modeling a population with trait and physical age-structures is established. Traits of newborn offspring are inherited from the parents except when mutations occur, while ages are set to zero. Because of interactions between individuals, standard approaches based on the Laplace transform do not hold. We use a martingale problem approach and a separation of the slow (trait) and fast (age) scales. While the trait marginals converge in a pathwise sense to a superprocess, the age distributions, on another time scale, average to equilibria that depend on traits. The convergence of the whole process depending on trait and age, only holds for finite-dimensional time-marginals. We apply our results to the study of examples illustrating different cases of trade-off between competition and senescence.     

The divergence of fluctuations for shape in first passage percolation

We consider the first passage percolation model on Z ^d for d ≥ 2. In this model, we assign independently to each edge the value zero with probability p and the value one with probability 1−p. We denote by T(0, ν) the passage time from the origin to ν for ν ∈ R ^d and It is well known that if p < p _c , there exists a compact shape B _d ⊂ R ^d such that for all > 0, t B _d (1 − ) ⊂ B(t) ⊂ tB _d (1 + ) and G(t)(1 − ) ⊂ B(t) ⊂ G(t)(1 + ) eventually w.p.1. We denote the fluctuations of B(t) from tB _d and G(t) by In this paper, we show that for all d ≥ 2 with a high probability, the fluctuations F(B(t), G(t)) and F(B(t), tB _d ) diverge with a rate of at least C log t for some constant C. The proof of this argument depends on the linearity between the number of pivotal edges of all minimizing paths and the paths themselves. This linearity is also independently interesting. Research supported by NSF grant DMS-0405150     

Hyperbolic conservation laws with discontinuous fluxes and hydrodynamic limit for particle systems

We study the following class of scalar hyperbolic conservation laws with discontinuous fluxes:

(0.1)     

Spatio-temporal stationary covariance models

Stationary covariance functions that model space-time interactions are in great demand. The goal of this paper is to introduce and develop new spatio-temporal stationary covariance models. Integral representations for covariance functions with certain properties, such as α-symmetry in the spatial lag, are established. Mixture models are proposed through purely spatial and temporal covariance functions.     

Large deviations and continuum limit in the 2D Ising model

Summary. We study the 2D Ising model in a rectangular box Λ _L of linear size O(L). We determine the exact asymptotic behaviour of the large deviations of the magnetization ∑ _t∈ΛL σ(t) when L→∞ for values of the parameters of the model corresponding to the phase coexistence region, where the order parameter m ^* is strictly positive. We study in particular boundary effects due to an arbitrary real-valued boundary magnetic field. Using the self-duality of the model a large part of the analysis consists in deriving properties of the covariance function <σ(0)σ(t)>, as |t|→∞, at dual values of the parameters of the model. To do this analysis we establish new results about the high-temperature representation of the model. These results are valid for dimensions D≥2 and up to the critical temperature. They give a complete non-perturbative exposition of the high-temperature representation. We then study the Gibbs measure conditioned by {|∑ _t∈ΛL σ(t) −m|Λ _L ||≤|Λ _L |L ^{− c} }, with 0<c<1/4 and −m ^*<m<m ^*. We construct the continuum limit of the model and describe the limit by the solutions of a variational problem of isoperimetric type. Received: 17 October 1996 / In revised form: 7 March 1997