We wish to characterise when a Lévy process $X_t$ crosses boundaries like $t^κ$, $κ>0$, in a one or two-sided sense, for small times $t$; thus, we enquire when $\limsup_{t\downarrow 0}|X_t|/t^κ$, $\limsup_{t\downarrow 0}X_t/t^κ$ and/or $\liminf_{t\downarrow 0}X_t/t^κ$ are almost surely (a.s.) finite or infinite. Necessary and sufficient conditions are given for these possibilities for all values of $κ>0$. Often (for many values of $κ$), when the limsups are finite a.s., they are in fact zero, as we show, but the limsups may in some circumstances take finite, nonzero, values, a.s. In general, the process crosses one or two-sided boundaries in quite different ways, but surprisingly this is not so for the case $κ=1/2$. An integral test is given to distinguish the possibilities in that case. Some results relating to other norming sequences for $X$, and when $X$ is centered at a nonstochastic function, are also given.
The aim of this paper is to study the law of the last passage time of a linear diffusion to a curved boundary. We start by giving a general expression for the density of such a random variable under some regularity assumptions. Following Robbins & Siegmund, we then show that this expression may be computed for some implicit boundaries via a martingale method. Finally, we discuss some links between first hitting times and last passage times via time inversion, and present an integral equation (which we solve in some particular cases) satisfied by the density of the last passage time. Many examp…
In this paper, we develop a Monte Carlo based algorithm for estimating the FPT density of a time-homogeneous SDE through a time-dependent frontier. We consider Brownian bridges as well as localized Daniels curve approximations to obtain tractable estimations of the FPT probability between successive points of a simulated path of the process. Under mild assumptions, a (unique) Daniels curve local approximation can easily be obtained by explicitly solving a non-linear system of equations.
We study the asymptotic tail probability of the first-passage time over a moving boundary for a random walk conditioned to return to zero, where the increments of the random walk have finite variance. Typically, the asymptotic tail behavior may be described through a regularly varying function with exponent -1/2, where the impact of the boundary is captured by the slowly varying function. Yet, the moving boundary may have a stronger effect when the tail is considered at a time close to the return point of the random walk bridge. In the latter case, a phase transition appears in the asymptotics…
Let $\{S_n, n\geq1\}$ be a random walk wih independent and identically distributed increments and let $\{g_n,n\geq1\}$ be a sequence of real numbers. Let $T_g$ denote the first time when $S_n$ leaves $(g_n,\infty)$. Assume that the random walk is oscillating and asymptotically stable, that is, there exists a sequence $\{c_n,n\geq1\}$ such that $S_n/c_n$ converges to a stable law. In this paper we determine the tail behaviour of $T_g$ for all oscillating asymptotically stable walks and all boundary sequences satisfying $g_n=o(c_n)$. Furthermore, we prove that the rescaled random walk conditione…
Making use of a Rice-like series expansion, for a class of stationary Gaussian processes the asymptotic behavior of the first passage time probability density function through certain time-varying boundaries, including periodic boundaries, is determined. Sufficient conditions are then given such that the density asymptotically exhibits an exponential behavior when the boundary is either asymptotically constant or asymptotically periodic.
For a spectrally positive and strictly stable process with index in (1,2), a series representation is obtained for the joint distribution of the "first passage triple" that consists of the time of first passage and the undershoot and the overshoot at first passage. The result leads to several corollaries, including 1) the joint law of the first passage triple and the pre-passage running supremum, and 2) at a fixed time point, the joint law of the process' value, running supremum, and the time of the running supremum. The representation can be decomposed as a sum of strictly positive functions …
A law of the iterated logarithm is established for the last passage times of directed percolation on rectangles in the plane over exponential or geometric independent random variables, rescaled to converge to the Tracy-Widom distribution. The normalization is of loglog type, in contrast with the log normalization for the largest eigenvalue of a GUE matrix recently put forward by E. Paquette and O. Zeitouni. The proof relies on sharp tail bounds and superadditivity, close to the standard law of the iterated logarithm. A weaker result for the liminf is also discussed.
Let (Xt, t >= 0) be a diffusion process with jumps, sum of a Brownian motion with drift and a compound Poisson process. We consider T_x the first hitting time of a fixed level x > 0 by (Xt, t >= 0). We prove that the law of T_x has a density (defective when E(X1) < 0) with respect to the Lebesgue measure.
We consider random walks with independent but not necessarily identical distributed increments. Assuming that the increments satisfy the well-known Lindeberg condition, we investigate the asymptotic behaviour of first-passage times over moving boundaries. Furthermore, we prove that a properly rescaled random walk conditioned to stay above the boundary up to time $n$ converges, as $n\to\infty$, towards the Brownian meander.
Let $\mathbb{X}=(\mathbb{X}_t)_{t\geq 0}$ be the subdiffusive process defined, for any $t\geq 0$, by $ \mathbb{X}_t = X_{\ell_t}$ where $X=(X_t)_{t\geq 0}$ is a Lévy process and $\ell_t=\inf \{s>0;\: \mathcal{K}_s>t \}$ with $\mathcal{K}=(\mathcal{K}_t)_{t\geq 0}$ a subordinator independent of $X$. We start by developing a composite Wiener-Hopf factorization to characterize the law of the pair $(\mathbb{T}_a^{(\mathcal{b})}, (\mathbb{X} - \mathcal{b})_{\mathbb{T}_a^{(\mathcal{b})}})$ where \begin{equation*} \mathbb{T}_a^{(\mathcal{b})} = \inf \{t>0;\: \mathbb{X}_t > a+ \mathcal{b}_t \} \end{eq…
Equip the edges of the lattice $\mathbb{Z}^2$ with i.i.d. random capacities. We prove a law of large numbers for the maximal flow crossing a rectangle in $\mathbb{R}^2$ when the side lengths of the rectangle go to infinity. The value of the limit depends on the asymptotic behaviour of the ratio of the height of the cylinder over the length of its basis. This law of large numbers extends the law of large numbers obtained by Grimmett and Kesten (1984) for rectangles of particular orientation.
For the last passage percolation (LPP) on $\mathbb{Z}^2$ with exponential passage times, let $T_{n}$ denote the passage time from $(1,1)$ to $(n,n)$. We investigate the law of iterated logarithm of the sequence $\{T_{n}\}_{n\geq 1}$; we show that $\liminf_{n\to \infty} \frac{T_{n}-4n}{n^{1/3}(\log \log n)^{1/3}}$ almost surely converges to a deterministic negative constant and obtain some estimates on the same. This settles a conjecture of Ledoux (J. Theor. Probab., 2018) where a related lower bound and similar results for the corresponding upper tail were proved. Our proof relies on a slight …
This article studies a linear scalar delay differential equation subject to small multiplicative power tail Lévy noise. We solve the first passage (the Kramers) problem with probabilistic methods and discover an asymptotic loss of memory in this non-Markovian system. Furthermore, the mean exit time increases as the power of the small noise amplitude, whereas the pre-factor accounts for memory effects. In particular, we discover a non-linear delay-induced exit acceleration due to a non-normal growth phenomenon. Our results are illustrated in the well-known linear delay oscillator driven by $α$-…
The directed last passage percolation (LPP) on the quarter-plane is a growing model. To come into the growing set, a cell needs that the cells on its bottom and on its left to be in the growing set, and then to wait a random time. We present here a generalisation of directed last passage percolation (GLPP). In GLPP, the waiting time of a cell depends on the difference of the coming times of its bottom and left cells. We explain in this article the physical meaning of this generalisation. In this first work on GLPP, we study them as a growing model on the cylinders rather than on the quarter-pl…
We study some limit theorems for the normalized law of integrated Brownian motion perturbed by several examples of functionals: the first passage time, the nth passage time, the last passage time up to a finite horizon and the supremum. We show that the penalization principle holds in all these cases and give descriptions of the conditioned processes. In particular, it is remarkable that the penalization by the nth passage time is independent of n, and always gives the same conditioned process, i.e. integrated Brownian motion conditioned not to hit 0. Our results rely on some explicit formulae…
We study the default risk in incomplete information. That means, we model the value of a firm by one Lévy process which is the sum of brownian motion with drift and compound Poisson process. This Lévy process can not be observed completely and we let an other process which representes the available information on the firm. We obtain an equation safisfied by the conditional density of the default time given the available information and closed form expression for the density.
Large deviations in the context of first-passage percolation was first studied in the early 1980s by Grimmett and Kesten, and has since been revisited in a variety of studies. However, none of these studies provides a precise relation between the existence of moments of polynomial order and the decay of probability tails. Such a relation is derived in this paper, and is used to strengthen the conclusion of the shape theorem. In contrast to its one-dimensional counterpart - the Hsu-Robbins-Erdős strong law - this strengthening is obtained without imposing a higher-order moment condition.
We discuss the order of the variance on a lattice analogue of the Hammersley process with boundaries, for which the environment on each site has independent, Bernoulli distributed values. The last passage time is the maximum number of Bernoulli points that can be collected on a piecewise linear path, where each segment has strictly positive but finite slope. We show that along characteristic directions the order of the variance of the last passage time is of order $N^{2/3}$ in the model with boundary. These characteristic directions are restricted in a cone starting at the origin, and along an…
Understanding the space-time features of how a Lévy process crosses a constant barrier for the first time, and indeed the last time, is a problem which is central to many models in applied probability such as queueing theory, financial and actuarial mathematics, optimal stopping problems, the theory of branching processes to name but a few. In \cite{KD} a new quintuple law was established for a general Lévy process at first passage below a fixed level. In this article we use the quintuple law to establish a family of related joint laws, which we call $n$-tuple laws, for Lévy processes, Lévy pr…
Suppose $X$ is a Markov process on the real line (or some interval). Do the distributions of its first passage times downwards (fptd) determine its law? In this paper we treat some special cases of this question. We prove that if the fptd process has the law of a subordinator, then necessarily $X$ is a Lévy process with no negative jumps; specifying the law of the subordinator determines the law of $X$ uniquely. We further show that, likewise, the classes of continuous-state branching processes and of self-similar processes without negative jumps are also respectively characterised by a certai…
Let $ξ_1, ξ_2, \ldots$ be independent copies of a positive random variable $ξ$, $S_0 = 0$, and $S_k = ξ_1+\ldots+ξ_k$, $k \in \mathbb{N}$. Define $N(t) = \inf\{k \in \mathbb{N}: S_k>t\}$ for $t\geq 0$. The process $(N(t))_{t\geq 0}$ is the first-passage time process associated with $(S_k)_{k\geq 0}$. It is known that if the law of $ξ$ belongs to the domain of attraction of a stable law or $\mathbb{P}(ξ>t)$ varies slowly at $\infty$, then $N(t)$, suitably shifted and scaled, converges in distribution as $t \to \infty$ to a random variable $W$ with a stable law or a Mittag-Leffler law. We invest…
We consider the standard first passage percolation model in the rescaled graph $\mathbb{Z}^d/n$ for $d\geq 2$, and a domain $Ω$ of boundary $Γ$ in $\mathbb{R}^d$. Let $Γ^1$ and $Γ^2$ be two disjoint open subsets of $Γ$, representing the parts of $Γ$ through which some water can enter and escape from $Ω$. We investigate the asymptotic behaviour of the flow $ϕ_n$ through a discrete version $Ω_n$ of $Ω$ between the corresponding discrete sets $Γ^1_n$ and $Γ^2_n$. We prove that under some conditions on the regularity of the domain and on the law of the capacity of the edges, $ϕ_n$ converges almost…
We study the sequence alignment problem and its independent version, the discrete Hammersley process with an exploration penalty. We obtain rigorous upper bounds for the number of optimality regions in both models near the soft edge. At zero penalty the independent model becomes an exactly solvable model and we identify cases for which the law of the last passage time converges to a Tracy-Widom law.
We consider standard first-passage percolation on $\Z^d$. Let $e_1$ be the first coordinate vector. Let $a(n)$ be the expected passage time from the origin to $ne_1$. In this short paper, we note that $a(n)$ is increasing under some strong condition on the support of the law of the passage times on the edges.
We pursue the study of a random coloring first passage percolation model introduced by Fontes and Newman. We prove that the asymptotic shape of this first passage percolation model continuously depends on the law of the coloring. The proof uses several couplings, particularly with greedy lattice animals.
We consider the boundary crossing problem for time-homogeneous diffusions and general curvilinear boundaries. Bounds are derived for the approximation error of the one-sided (upper) boundary crossing probability when replacing the original boundary by a different one. In doing so we establish the existence of the first-passage time density and provide an upper bound for this function. In the case of processes with diffusion interval equal to whole real line this is extended to a lower bound, as well as bounds for the first crossing time of a lower boundary. An extension to some time-inhomogene…
We consider the standard first passage percolation model in $\mathbb{Z}^d$ for $d\geq 2$. We are interested in two quantities, the maximal flow $τ$ between the lower half and the upper half of the box, and the maximal flow $ϕ$ between the top and the bottom of the box. A standard subadditive argument yields the law of large numbers for $τ$ in rational directions. Kesten and Zhang have proved the law of large numbers for $τ$ and $ϕ$ when the sides of the box are parallel to the coordinate hyperplanes: the two variables grow linearly with the surface $s$ of the basis of the box, with the same de…
We prove a GUE central limit theorem for random variables with finite fourth moment. We apply this theorem to prove that the directed first and last passage percolation problems in thin rectangles exhibit universal fluctuations given by the Tracy-Widom law.
Consider a stable Lévy process $X=(X_t,t\geq 0)$ and let $T_x$, for $x>0$, denote the first passage time of $X$ above the level $x$. In this work, we give an alternative proof of the absolute continuity of the law of $T_x$ and we obtain a new expression for its density function. Our approach is elementary and provides a new insight into the study of the law of $T_x$. The random variable $T_x^0$, defined as the limit of $T_x$ when the corresponding overshoot tends to $0$, plays an important role in obtaining these results. Moreover, we establish a relation between the random variable $T_x^0$ an…
We study the asymptotic behaviour of the tail of the distribution of the first passage time of a Lévy process over a one-sided moving boundary. Our main result states that if the boundary behaves as $t^γ$ for large $t$ for some $γ<1/2$ then the probability that the process stays below the boundary behaves asymptotically as in the case of a constant boundary. We do not have to assume Spitzer's condition in contrast to all previously known results. Both positive ($+t^γ$) and negative ($-t^γ$) boundaries are considered. These results extend the findings of Greenwood and Novikov (1986) and are als…
Let $X$ be a real valued Lévy process that is in the domain of attraction of a stable law without centering with norming function $c.$ As an analogue of the random walk results in \cite{vw} and \cite{rad} we study the local behaviour of the distribution of the lifetime $ζ$ under the characteristic measure $\underline{n}$ of excursions away from 0 of the process $X$ reflected in its past infimum, and of the first passage time of $X$ below $0,$ $T_{0}=\inf \{t>0:X_{t}<0\},$ under $\mathbb{P}_{x}(\cdot),$ for $x>0,$ in two different regimes for $x,$ viz. $x=o(c(\cdot))$ and $x>D c(\cdot),$ for so…
We consider two different objects on super-critical Bernoulli percolation on $\mathbb{Z}^d$ : the time constant for i.i.d. first-passage percolation (for $d\geq 2$) and the isoperimetric constant (for $d=2$). We prove that both objects are continuous with respect to the law of the environment. More precisely we prove that the isoperimetric constant of supercritical percolation in $\mathbb{Z}^2$ is continuous in the percolation parameter. As a corollary we prove that normalized sets achieving the isoperimetric constant are continuous with respect to the Hausdroff metric. Concerning first-passag…
Given a two-dimensional correlated diffusion process, we determine the joint density of the first passage times of the process to some constant boundaries. This quantity depends on the joint density of the first passage time of the first crossing component and of the position of the second crossing component before its crossing time. First we show that these densities are solutions of a system of Volterra-Fredholm first kind integral equations. Then we propose a numerical algorithm to solve it and we describe how to use the algorithm to approximate the joint density of the first passage times.…
By using the law of the excursions of Brownian motion with drift, we find the distribution of the $n-$th passage time of Brownian motion through a straight line $S(t)= a + bt.$ In the special case when $b = 0,$ we extend the result to a space-time transformation of Brownian motion.
Let $R_n=\max_{0\leq j\leq n}S_j-S_n$ be a random walk $S_n$ reflected in its maximum. Except in the trivial case when $P(X\ge0)=1$, $R_n$ will pass over a horizontal boundary of any height in a finite time, with probability 1. We extend this by giving necessary and sufficient conditions for finiteness of passage times of $R_n$ above certain curved (power law) boundaries, as well. The intuition that a degree of heaviness of the negative tail of the distribution of the increments of $S_n$ is necessary for passage of $R_n$ above a high level is correct in most, but not all, cases, as we show. Co…
Let be $(X_t, t\geq 0)$ be a Lévy process which is the sum of a Brownian motion with drift and a compound Poisson process. We consider the first passage time $τ_x$ at a fixed level $x>0$ by $(X_t, t\geq 0)$ and $K_x:= X_{τ_x}-x$ the overshoot and $L_x:= x-X_{τ_x^-}$ the undershoot. We first study the regularity of the density of the first passage time. Secondly, we calculate the joint law of $(τ_x, K_x, L_x).$
We consider the spectrally negative Levy processes and determine the joint laws for the quantities such as the first and last passage times over a fixed level, the overshoots and undershoots at first passage, the minimum, the maximum and the duration of negative values. We apply our results to insurance risk theory to find an explicit expression for the generalized expected discounted penalty function in terms of scale functions. Further, a new expression for the generalized Dickson's formula is provided.
In this paper we consider first-passage percolation on certain 1-dimensional periodic graphs, such as the $\Z\times\{0,1,\ldots,K-1\}^{d-1}$ nearest neighbour graph for $d,K\geq1$. We find that both length and weight of minimal-weight paths present a typical 1-dimensional asymptotic behaviour. Apart from a strong law of large numbers, we derive a central limit theorem, a law of the iterated logarithm, and a Donsker theorem for these quantities. In addition, we prove that the mean and variance of the length and weight of the minimizing path between two points are monotone in the distance betwee…
We consider the totally asymmetric simple exclusion process in a critical scaling parametrized by $a\geq0$, which creates a shock in the particle density of order $aT^{-1/3},$ $T$ the observation time. When starting from step initial data, we provide bounds on the limiting law which in particular imply that in the double limit $\lim_{a \to \infty}\lim_{T \to \infty}$ one recovers the product limit law and the degeneration of the correlation length observed at shocks of order $1$. This result is shown to apply to a general last-passage percolation model. We also obtain bounds on the two-point f…
We consider directed first-passage and last-passage percolation on the nonnegative lattice Z_+^d, d\geq2, with i.i.d. weights at the vertices. Under certain moment conditions on the common distribution of the weights, the limits g(x)=lim_{n\to\infty}n^{-1}T(\lfloor nx\rfloor) exist and are constant a.s. for x\in R_+^d, where T(z) is the passage time from the origin to the vertex z\in Z_+^d. We show that this shape function g is continuous on R_+^d, in particular at the boundaries. In two dimensions, we give more precise asymptotics for the behavior of g near the boundaries; these asymptotics d…
In this article we study a problem related to the first passage and inverse first passage time problems for Brownian motions originally formulated by Jackson, Kreinin and Zhang (2009). Specifically, define $τ_X = \inf\{t>0:W_t + X \le b(t) \}$ where $W_t$ is a standard Brownian motion, then given a boundary function $b:[0,\infty) \to \RR$ and a target measure $μ$ on $[0,\infty)$, we seek the random variable $X$ such that the law of $τ_X$ is given by $μ$. We characterize the solutions, prove uniqueness and existence and provide several key examples associated with the linear boundary.
We study the site version of (independent) first-passage percolation on the triangular lattice $\mathbb{T}$. Denote the passage time of the site $v$ in $\mathbb{T}$ by $t(v)$, and assume that $P(t(v)=0)=P(t(v)=1)=1/2$. Denote by $a_{0,n}$ the passage time from $\textbf{0}$ to $(n,0)$, and by $b_{0,n}$ the passage time from $\textbf{0}$ to the halfplane $\{(x,y):x\geq n\}$. We prove that there exists a constant $0<μ<\infty$ such that as $n\rightarrow\infty$, $a_{0,n}/\log n\rightarrow μ$ in probability and $b_{0,n}/\log n\rightarrow μ/2$ almost surely. This result confirms a prediction of Keste…
We consider the standard first passage percolation on $\mathbb{Z}^{d}$: with each edge of the lattice we associate a random capacity. We are interested in the maximal flow through a cylinder in this graph. Under some assumptions Kesten proved in 1987 a law of large numbers for the rescaled flow. Chayes and Chayes established that the large deviations far away below its typical value are of surface order, at least for the Bernoulli percolation and cylinders of certain height. Thanks to another approach we extend here their result to higher cylinders, and we transport this result to the model of…
In [4], it is proved that we can have a continuous first-passage-time density function of one dimensional standard Brownian motion when the boundary is Hölder continuous with exponent greater than 1/2. For the purpose of extending [4] into multidimensional domains, we show that there exists a continuous first-passage-time density function of standard $d$-dimensional Brownian motion in moving boundaries in $\mathbb{R}^{d}$, $d\geq 2$, under a $C^{3}$-diffeomorphism. Similarly as in [4], by using a property of local time of standard $d$-dimensional Brownian motion and the heat equation with Diri…
The inverse first-passage problem for a Wiener process $(W_t)_{t\ge0}$ seeks to determine a function $b{}:{}\mathbb{R}_+\to\mathbb{R}$ such that \[τ=\inf\{t>0| W_t\ge b(t)\}\] has a given law. In this paper two methods for approximating the unknown function $b$ are presented. The errors of the two methods are studied. A set of examples illustrates the methods. Possible applications are enlighted.
We study the first passage time (FPT) problem in Levy type of anomalous diffusion. Using the recently formulated fractional Fokker-Planck equation, we obtain an analytic expression for the FPT distribution which, in the large passage time limit, is characterized by a universal power law. Contrasting this power law with the asymptotic FPT distribution from another type of anomalous diffusion exemplified by the fractional Brownian motion, we show that the two types of anomalous diffusions give rise to two distinct scaling behavior.
We study the dynamics of erasing randomly chosen letters from words by introducing a certain class of discrete-time stochastic processes, general erased-word processes(GEWPs), and investigating three closely related topics: Representation, Martin boundary and filtration theory. We use de Finetti's theorem and the random exchangeable linear order to obtain a de Finetti-type representation of GEWPs involving induced order statistics. Our studies expose connections between exchangeability theory and certain poly-adic filtrations that can be found in other exchangeable random objects as well. We s…
Let $(X,\p_x)$ be a continuous time Markov chain with finite or countable state space $S$ and let $T$ be its first passage time in a subset $D$ of $S$. It is well known that if $μ$ is a quasi-stationary distribution relatively to $T$, then this time is exponentially distributed under $\p_μ$. However, quasi-stationarity is not a necessary condition. In this paper, we determine more general conditions on an initial distribution $μ$ for $T$ to be exponentially distributed under $\p_μ$. We show in addition how quasi-stationary distributions can be expressed in terms of any initial law which makes …
This paper proves an equality in law between the invariant measure of a reflected system of Brownian motions and a vector of point-to-line last passage percolation times in a discrete random environment. A consequence describes the distribution of the all-time supremum of Dyson Brownian motion with drift. A finite temperature version relates the point-to-line partition functions of two directed polymers, with an inverse-gamma and a Brownian environment, and generalises Dufresne's identity. Our proof introduces an interacting system of Brownian motions with an invariant measure given by a field…
This paper is concerned with the small time behaviour of a Lévy process $X$. In particular, we investigate the {\it stabilities} of the times, $\Tstarb(r)$ and $\Tbarb(r)$, at which $X$, started with $X_0=0$, first leaves the space-time regions $\{(t,y)\in\R^2: y\le rt^b, t\ge 0\}$ (one-sided exit), or $\{(t,y)\in\R^2: |y|\le rt^b, t\ge 0\}$ (two-sided exit), $0\le b<1$, as $r\dto 0$. Thus essentially we determine whether or not these passage times behave like deterministic functions in the sense of different modes of convergence; specifically convergence in probability, almost surely and in $…
