We study branching random walks in random i.i.d. environment in $\Z^d, d \geq 1$. For this model, the population size cannot decrease, and a natural definition of recurrence is introduced. We prove a dichotomy for recurrence/transience, depending only on the support of the environmental law. We give sufficient conditions for recurrence and for transience. In the recurrent case, we study the asymptotics of the tail of the distribution of the hitting times and prove a shape theorem for the set of lattice sites which are visited up to a large time.
We develop a criterion for transience for a general model of branching Markov chains. In the case of multi-dimensional branching random walk in random environment (BRWRE) this criterion becomes explicit. In particular, we show that \emph{Condition L} of Comets and Popov is necessary and sufficient for transience as conjectured. Furthermore, the criterion applies to two important classes of branching random walks and implies that the critical branching random walk is transient resp. dies out locally.
Reflected random walk in higher dimension arises from an ordinary random walk (sum of i.i.d. random variables): whenever one of the reflecting coordinates becomes negative, its sign is changed, and the process continues from that modified position. One-dimensional reflected random walk is quite well understood from work in 7 decades, but the multidimensional model presents several new difficulties. Here we investigate recurrence questions.
We continue our study of critical branching random walk and branching capacity. In this paper we introduce branching recurrence and branching transience and prove an analogous version of Wiener's Test.
Motivated by the stochastic Lotka-Volterra model, we introduce discrete-state interacting multitype branching processes. We show that they can be obtained as the sum of a multidimensional random walk with a Lamperti-type change proportional to the population size; and a multidimensional Poisson process with a time-change proportional to the pairwise interactions. We define the analogous continuous-state process as the unique strong solution of a multidimensional SDE. We prove that the scaling limits of the discrete-state process correspond to its continuous counterpart. In addition, we show th…
The lonely branching random walks on ${\mathbb Z}^d$ is an interacting particle system where each particle moves as an independent random walk and undergoes critical binary branching when it is alone. We show that if the symmetrized walk is recurrent, lonely branching random walks die out locally. Furthermore, the same result holds if additional branching is allowed when the walk is not alone.
Symmetric heavily tailed random walks on $Z^d, d\geq 1,$ are considered. Under appropriate regularity conditions on the tails of the jump distributions, global (i.e., uniform in $x,t, |x|+t\to\infty,$) asymptotic behavior of the transition probability $p(t,0,x)$ is obtained. The examples indicate that the regularity conditions are essential.
Crystal lattices are known to be one of the generalizations of classical periodic lattices which can be embedded into some Euclidean spaces properly. As to make a wide range of multidimensional discrete distributions on Euclidean spaces more treatable, multidimensional Euler products and multidimensional Shintani zeta functions on crystal lattices are introduced. They are completely different from existing Ihara zeta functions on graphs in that our zeta functions are defined on crystal lattices directly. Via a concept of periodic realizations of crystal lattices, we make it possible to provide…
We extend the theory of discrete capacity to critical branching random walk. We introduce branching capacity for any finite subset of $\Z^d, d\geq5$. Analogous to the regular discrete capacity, branching capacity is closely related to the asymptotics of the probability of visiting a fixed finite set by a critical branching random walk starting from a distant point and the conditional distribution of the hitting point.
In this paper we consider a d-dimensional scenery seen along a simple symmetric branching random walk, where at each time each particle gives the color record it is seeing. We show that we can a.s. reconstruct the scenery up to equivalence from the color record of all the particles. For this we assume that the scenery has at least 2d + 1 colors which are i.i.d. with uniform probability. This is an improvement in comparison to [22] where the particles needed to see at each time a window around their current position. In [11] the reconstruction is done for d = 2 with only one particle instead of…
We consider a branching system of random walk in random environment (in location) in $\mathbb{N}$. We will give the exact limit value of $\frac{M_{n}}{n}$, where $M_{n}$ denotes the minimal position of branching random walk at time $n$. A key step in the proof is to transfer our branching random walks in random environment (in location) to branching random walks in random environment (in time), by use of Bramson's "branching processes within a branching process" .
Branching-stable processes have recently appeared as counterparts of stable subordinators, when addition of real variables is replaced by branching mechanism for point processes. Here, we are interested in their domains of attraction and describe explicit conditions for a branching random walk to converge after a proper magnification to a branching-stable process. This contrasts with deep results that have been obtained during the last decade on the asymptotic behavior of branching random walks and which involve either shifting without rescaling, or demagnification.
We study branching random walks in random environment on the $d$-dimensional square lattice, $d \geq 1$. In this model, the environment has finite range dependence, and the population size cannot decrease. We prove limit theorems (laws of large numbers) for the set of lattice sites which are visited up to a large time as well as for the local size of the population. The limiting shape of this set is compact and convex, though the local size is given by a concave growth exponent. Also, we obtain the law of large numbers for the logarithm of the total number of particles in the process.
In this work, we discuss the smoothly amnesia-reinforced multidimensional elephant random walk (MARW). The scaling limit of the MARW is shown to exist in the diffusive, critical and superdiffusive regimes. We also establish the almost sure convergence in all of the three regimes. The quadratic strong law is displayed in the diffusive regime as well as in the critical regime. The mean square convergence towards a non-Gaussian random variable is established in the superdiffusive regime. Similar results for the barycenter process are also derived. Finally, the last two Sections are devoted to a d…
For the critical branching random walk in $\mathbb{Z}^{4}$ with branching at the origin only we find the asymptotic behavior of the probability of the event that there are particles at the origin at moment $t\rightarrow \infty $ and prove a Yaglom type conditional limit theorem for the number of individuals at the origin given that there are particles at the origin.
We establish the almost sure validity of the multifractal formalism for R^d-valued branching random walks on the whole relative interior of the natural convex domain of study.
In part I (math.PR/0406392) we proved for an arbitrary one-dimensional random walk with independent increments that the probability of crossing a level at a given time n is of the maximal order square root of n. In higher dimensions we call a random walk 'polygonally recurrent' (resp. transient) if a.s. infinitely many (resp. finitely many) of the straight lines between two consecutive sites hit a given bounded set. The above estimate implies that three-dimensional random walks with independent components are polygonally transient. Similarly a directionally reinforced random walk on Z^3 in the…
Given a branching random walk on a graph, we consider two kinds of truncations: by inhibiting the reproduction outside a subset of vertices and by allowing at most $m$ particles per site. We investigate the convergence of weak and strong critical parameters of these truncated branching random walks to the analogous parameters of the original branching random walk. As a corollary, we apply our results to the study of the strong critical parameter of a branching random walk restricted to the cluster of a Bernoulli bond percolation.
We consider a continuous-time branching random walk on a multidimensional lattice with two types of particles and an infinite number of initial particles. The main results are devoted to the study of the generating function and the limiting behavior of the moments of subpopulations generated by a single particle of each type. We assume that particle types differ from each other not only by the laws of branching, as in multi-type branching processes, but also by the laws of walking. For a critical branching process at each lattice point and recurrent random walk of particles, the effect of limi…
We consider a ballistic random walk in an i.i.d. random environment that does not allow retreating in a certain fixed direction. We prove an invariance principle (functional central limit theorem) under almost every fixed environment. The assumptions are nonnestling, at least two spatial dimensions, and a $2+ε$ moment for the step of the walk uniformly in the environment. The main point behind the invariance principle is that the quenched mean of the walk behaves subdiffusively.
It is well known that the behaviour of a branching process is completely described by the generating function of the offspring law and its fixed points. Branching random walks are a natural generalization of branching processes: a branching process can be seen as a one-dimensional branching random walk. We define a multidimensional generating function associated to a given branching random walk. The present paper investigates the similarities and the differences of the generating functions, their fixed points and the implications on the underlying stochastic process, between the one-dimensiona…
We consider the branching random walk drifting to $-\infty$ and we investigate large deviations-type estimates for the first passage time. We prove the corresponding law of large numbers and the central limit theorem.
In this paper, we study the critical branching random walk in the critical dimension, $Z^4$. We provide the asymptotics of the probability of visiting a fixed finite subset and the range of the critical branching random walk conditioned on the total number of offsprings. We also prove that conditioned on visiting, the first visiting point converges in distribution.
We study the branching random walk on weighted graphs; site-breeding and edge-breeding branching random walks on graphs are seen as particular cases. We describe the strong critical value in terms of a geometrical parameter of the graph. We characterize the weak critical value and relate it to another geometrical parameter. We prove that, at the strong critical value, the process dies out locally almost surely; while, at the weak critical value, global survival and global extinction are both possible.
The reproduction speed of a continuous-time branching random walk is proportional to a positive parameter $λ$. There is a threshold for $λ$, which is called $λ_w$, that separates almost sure global extinction from global survival. Analogously, there exists another threshold $λ_s$ below which any site is visited almost surely a finite number of times (i.e.~local extinction) while above it there is a positive probability of visiting every site infinitely many times. The local critical parameter $λ_s$ is completely understood and can be computed as a function of the reproduction rates. On the oth…
It is a common practice to describe branching random walks in terms of birth, death and walk of particles, which makes it easier to use them in different applications. The main results obtained for the models of symmetric continuous-time heavy-tailed branching random walks on a multidimensional lattice. We will be mainly interested in studying the problems related to the limiting behavior of branching random walks such as the existence of phase transitions under change of various parameters, the properties of the limiting distribution and the survival probability of a particle population. Emph…
We give an alternative proof of a result by N. Gantert, Y. Hu and Z. Shi on the asymptotic behavior of the survival probability of the branching random walk killed below a linear boundary, in the special case of deterministic binary branching and bounded random walk steps. Connections with the Brunet-Derrida theory of stochastic fronts are discussed.
We consider a random walk in random environment with random holding times, that is, the random walk jumping to one of its nearest neighbors with some transition probability after a random holding time. Both the transition probabilities and the laws of the holding times are randomly distributed over the integer lattice. Our main result is a quenched large deviation principle for the position of the random walk. The rate function is given by the Legendre transform of the so-called Lyapunov exponents for the Laplace transform of the first passage time. By using this representation, we derive some…
We consider branching random walks and contact processes on infinite, connected, locally finite graphs whose reproduction and infectivity rates across edges are inversely proportional to vertex degree. We show that when the ambient graph is a Galton-Watson tree then, in certain circumstances, the branching random walks and contact processes will have weak survival phases. We also provide bounds on critical values.
Consider a discrete-time one-dimensional supercritical branching random walk. We study the probability that there exists an infinite ray in the branching random walk that always lies above the line of slope $γ-ε$, where $γ$ denotes the asymptotic speed of the right-most position in the branching random walk. Under mild general assumptions upon the distribution of the branching random walk, we prove that when $ε\to 0$, the probability in question decays like $\exp\{- {β+ o(1)\over ε^{1/2}}\}$, where $β$ is a positive constant depending on the distribution of the branching random walk. In the sp…
We take the point of view of the particle in a multidimensional nearest neighbor random walk in random environment (RWRE). We prove a quenched large deviation principle and derive a variational formula for the quenched rate function. Most of the previous results in this area rely on the subadditive ergodic theorem. We employ a different technique which is based on a minimax theorem. Large deviation principles for RWRE have been proven for i.i.d. nestling environments subject to a moment condition and for ergodic uniformly elliptic environments. We assume only that the environment is ergodic an…
We give three different criteria for transience of a Branching Markov Chain. These conditions enable us to give a classification of Branching Random Walks in Random Environment (BRWRE) on Cayley Graphs in recurrence and transience. This classification is stated explicitly for BRWRE on $\Z^d.$ Furthermore, we emphasize the interplay between Branching Markov Chains and the spectral radius. We prove properties of the spectral radius of the Random Walk in Random Environment with the help of appropriate Branching Markov Chains.
In this note, we make explicit the law of the renormalized supercritical branching random walk, giving credit to a conjecture formulated in a previous works of the authors for a continuous analog of the branching random walk. Also, in the case of a branching random walk on a homogeneous tree, we express the law of the corresponding limiting renormalized Gibbs measures, confirming, in this discrete model, conjectures formulated by physicists about the Poisson-Dirichlet nature of the jumps in the limit, and precising the conjecture by giving the spatial distribution of these jumps.
In this article, we study branching random walks on graphs modeling division-mutation processes inspired by adaptive immunity. We apply the theory of expander graphs on mutation rules in evolutionary processes and obtain estimates for the cover times of the branching random walks. This analysis reveals an unexpected saturation phenomenon : increasing the mutation rate above a certain threshold does not enhance the speed of state-space exploration.
We consider a supercritical symmetric continuous-time branching random walk on a multidimensional lattice with a finite number of particle generation sources of varying positive intensities without any restrictions on the variance of jumps of the underlying random walk. It is assumed that the spectrum of the evolution operator contains at least one positive eigenvalue. We prove that under these conditions the largest eigenvalue of the evolution operator is simple and determines the rate of exponential growth of particle quantities at every point on the lattice as well as on the lattice as a wh…
We consider the time evolution of a lattice branching random walk with local perturbations. Under certain conditions, we prove the Carleman type estimation for the moments of a particle subpopulation number and show the existence of a steady state.
We consider branching random walk in random environment (BRWRE) and prove the existence of deterministic subsequences along which their maximum, centered at its mean, is tight. This partially answers an open question in arXiv:1711.00852. The method of proof adapts an argument developed by Dekking and Host for branching random walks with bounded increments. The question of tightness without the need for subsequences remains open.
We write $R_n$ for the minimal position attained after time $n$ by a branching random walk in the boundary case. In this article, we prove that $R_n - \frac{1}{2} \log n$ converges in law toward a shifted Gumbel distribution.
We study weak and strong survival for branching random walks on multigraphs. We prove that, for a large class of multigraphs, weak survival is related to a geometrical parameter of the multigraph and that the existence of a pure weak phase is equivalent to nonamenability. Finally we study weak and strong critical behaviors of the branching random walk.
We study the distribution of the maximal displacement of particles positions for the whole time of the population existence in the model of critical and subcritical catalytic branching random walk on Z. In particular, we prove that in the case of simple symmetric random walk on Z, the distribution of the maximal displacement has "a heavy tail" decreasing as a function of the power 1/2 or 1, when the branching process is critical or subcritical, respectively. These statements describe new effects which do not arise in the corresponding investigations of the maximal displacement of critical and …
Foss and Zachary (2003) and Foss, Palmowski and Zachary (2005) studied the probability of achieving a receding boundary on a time interval of random length by a random walk with a heavy-tailed jump distribution. They have proposed and developed a new approach that allows to generalise results of Asmussen (1998) onto the case of arbitrary stopping times and a wide class of nonlinear boundaries, and to obtain uniform results over all stopping times. In this paper, we consider a class of branching random walks with fading branching and obtain results on the tail asymptotics for the maximum of a b…
In this paper, we study the probability of visiting a distant point $a\in \mathbb{Z}^4$ by critical branching random walk starting from the origin. We prove that this probability is bounded by $1/(|a|^2\log |a|)$ up to a constant.
In a seminal paper Biggins and Kyprianou \cite{BKy04} proved the existence of a non degenerate limit for the {\it Derivative martingale} of the branching random walk. As shown in \cite{Aid11} and \cite{Mad11}, this is an object of central importance in the study of the extremes of the branching random walk. In this paper we investigate the tail distribution of the limit of the {\it Derivative Martingale} by mean of the study of the global minimum of the branching random walk. This new approach leads us to extend the results of \cite{Gui90} and \cite{Bur09} under slighter assumptions.
An intrinsic branching structure within the transient random walk on a strip in a random environment is revealed. As applications, which enables us to express the hitting time explicitly, and specifies the density of the absolutely continuous invariant measure for the "environments viewed from the particle".
Random walks conditioned to stay positive are a prominent topic in fluctuation theory. One way to construct them is as a random walk conditioned to stay positive up to time $n$, and let $n$ tend to infinity. A second method is conditioning instead to stay positive up to an independent geometric time, and send its parameter to zero. The multidimensional case (condition the components of a $d$-dimensional random walk to be ordered) was solved in [EK08] using the first approach, but some moment conditions need to be imposed. Our approach is based on the second method, which has the advantage to r…
We consider branching random walks on the Euclidean lattice in dimensions five and higher. In this non-Markovian setting, we first obtain a relationship between the equilibrium measure and Green's function, in the form of an approximate last passage decomposition. Secondly, we obtain exponential moment bounds for functionals of the branching random walk, under optimal condition. As a corollary we obtain an approximate variational characterisation of the branching capacity. We finally derive upper bounds involving the branching capacity for the tail of the time spent in an arbitrary finite coll…
We consider real-valued branching random walks and prove a large deviation result for the position of the rightmost particle. The position of the rightmost particle is the maximum of a collection of a random number of dependent random walks. We characterise the rate function as the solution of a variational problem. We consider the same random number of independent random walks, and show that the maximum of the branching random walk is dominated by the maximum of the independent random walks. For the maximum of independent random walks, we derive a large deviation principle as well. It turns o…
For a supercritical catalytic branching random walk on Z^d (d is positive integer) with an arbitrary finite catalysts set we study the spread of particles population as time grows to infinity. Namely, we divide by t the position coordinates of each particle existing at time t and then let t tend to infinity. It is shown that in the limit there are a.s. no particles outside the closed convex surface in R^d which we call the propagation front and, under condition of infinite number of visits of the catalysts set, a.s. there exist particles on the propagation front. We also demonstrate that the p…
In this paper, we reveal the branching structure for a non-homogeneous random walk with bounded jumps. The ladder time $T_1,$ the first hitting time of $[1,\infty)$ by the walk starting from $0,$ could be expressed in terms of a non-homogeneous multitype branching process. As an application of the branching structure, we prove a law of large numbers of random walk in random environment with bounded jumps and specify the explicit invariant density for the Markov chain of ``the environment viewed from the particle" .The invariant density and the limit velocity could be expressed explicitly in te…
We study the maximal displacement of branching random walks in a class of time inhomogeneous environments. Specifically, binary branching random walks with Gaussian increments will be considered, where the variances of the increments change over time macroscopically. We find the asymptotics of the maximum up to an $O_P(1)$ (stochastically bounded) error, and focus on the following phenomena: the profile of the variance matters, both to the leading (velocity) term and to the logarithmic correction term, and the latter exhibits a phase transition.
