This paper is a detailled study of the coding of real trees by real valued functions that is motivated by probabilistic problems related to continuum random trees. Indeed it is known since the works of Aldous (1993) and Le Gall (1991) that a continuous non-negative function $h$ on $[0,1]$ such that $h(0)=0$ can be seen as the contour process of a compact real tree. This particular coding of a compact real tree provides additional structures, namely a root that is the vertex corresponding to $0\in [0,1]$, a linear order inherited from the usual order on $[0,1]$ and a measure induced by the Lebesgue measure on $[0,1]$; of course, the root, the linear order and the measure obtained by such a coding have to satisfy some compatibility conditions. In this paper, we prove that any compact real tree equipped with a root, a linear order and a measure that are compatible can be encoded by a non-negative function $h$ defined on a finite interval $[0, M]$, that is assumed to be left-continuous with right-limit, without positive jump and such that $h(0+)=h(0)=0$. Moreover, this function is unique if we assume that the exploration of the tree induced by such a coding backtracks as less as possible. We also prove that a measure-change on the tree corresponds to a re-parametrization of the coding function. In addition, we describe several path-properties of the coding function in terms of the metric properties of the real tree.
The measure-valued Fleming-Viot process is a diffusion which models the evolution of allele frequencies in a multi-type population. In the neutral setting the Kingman coalescent is known to generate the genealogies of the "individuals" in the population at a fixed time. The goal of the present paper is to replace this static point of view on the genealogies by an analysis of the evolution of genealogies. We encode the genealogy of the population as an (isometry class of an) ultra-metric space which is equipped with a probability measure. The space of ultra-metric measure spaces together with t…
We give an explicit construction of the increasing tree-valued process introduced by Abraham and Delmas using a random point process of trees and a grafting procedure. This random point process will be used in companion papers to study record processes on Lévy trees. We use the Poissonian structure of the jumps of the increasing tree-valued process to describe its behavior at the first time the tree grows higher than a given height. We also give the joint distribution of this exit time and the ascension time which corresponds to the first infinite jump of the tree-valued process.
We prove that every Lipschitz function from a subset of a locally compact length space to a metric tree has a unique absolutely minimal Lipschitz extension (AMLE). We relate these extensions to a stochastic game called {\bf Politics} - a generalization of a game called {\bf Tug of War} that has been used in \cite{PSSW09} to study real-valued AMLEs.
We present a new pruning procedure on discrete trees by adding marks on the nodes of trees. This procedure allows us to construct and study a tree-valued Markov process $\{{\cal G}(u)\}$ by pruning Galton-Watson trees and an analogous process $\{{\cal G}^*(u)\}$ by pruning a critical or subcritical Galton-Watson tree conditioned to be infinite. Under a mild condition on offspring distributions, we show that the process $\{{\cal G}(u)\}$ run until its ascension time has a representation in terms of $\{{\cal G}^*(u)\}$. A similar result was obtained by Aldous and Pitman (1998) in the special cas…
The genealogy at a single locus of a constant size $N$ population in equilibrium is given by the well-known Kingman's coalescent. When considering multiple loci under recombination, the ancestral recombination graph encodes the genealogies at all loci in one graph. For a continuous genome $G$, we study the tree-valued process $(T^N_u)_{u\in G}$ of genealogies along the genome in the limit $N\to\infty$. Encoding trees as metric measure spaces, we show convergence to a tree-valued process with cadlag paths. In addition, we study mixing properties of the resulting process for loci which are far a…
We consider sequences of tree-valued Markov chains that describe evolving genealogies in Cannings models, and we show their convergence in distribution to tree-valued Fleming-Viot processes. Under the conditions of Möhle and Sagitov, this convergence holds for all tree-valued Fleming-Viot processes under consideration in the dust-free case, and for the Fleming-Viot processes with values in the space of distance matrix distributions in the case with dust. Convergence to Fleming-Viot processes with values in the space of marked metric measure spaces in the case with dust is ensured by an additio…
We investigate the high resolution coding problem for general real-valued Lévy processes under L^p[0,1]-norm distortion. Tight asymptotic formulas are found under mild regularity assumptions.
By studying an admissible family of branching mechanisms introduced in Li (2014), we obtain a pruning procedure on Lévy trees. Then we could construct a decreasing Lévy-CRT-valued process $\{{\mathcal T}_t\}$ by pruning Lévy trees and an analogous process $\{{\mathcal T}^*_t\}$ by pruning a critical Lévy tree conditioned to be infinite. Under a regular condition on the admissible family of branching mechanisms, we show that the law of $\{{\mathcal T}_t\}$ at the ascension time can be represented by $\{{\mathcal T}^*_t\}$. The results generalize those studied in Abraham and Delmas (2012).
We introduce an algorithm for generating a random sequence of fragmentation trees, which we call the ancestral branching algorithm. This algorithm builds on the recursive partitioning structure of a tree and gives rise to an associated family of Markovian transition kernels whose finite-dimensional transition probabilities can be written in closed-form as the product over partition-valued Markov kernels. The associated tree-valued Markov process is infinitely exchangeable provided its associated partition-valued kernel is infinitely exchangeable. We also identify a transition procedure on part…
We give a de Finetti type representation for exchangeable random coalescent trees (formally described as semi-ultrametrics) in terms of sampling iid sequences from marked metric measure spaces. We apply this representation to define versions of tree-valued Fleming-Viot processes from a $Ξ$-lookdown model. As state spaces for these processes, we use, besides the space of isomorphy classes of metric measure spaces, also the space of isomorphy classes of marked metric measure spaces and a space of distance matrix distributions. This allows to include the case with dust in which the genealogical t…
We consider the tree-valued Fleming-Viot process, $(\mathcal X_t)_{t\geq 0}$, with mutation and selection as studied in Depperschmidt, Greven, Pfaffelhuber (2012). This process models the stochastic evolution of the genealogies and (allelic) types under resampling, mutation and selection in the population currently alive in the limit of infinitely large populations. Genealogies and types are described by (isometry classes of) marked metric measure spaces. The long-time limit of the neutral tree-valued Fleming-Viot dynamics is an equilibrium given via the marked metric measure space associated …
We use Dirichlet form methods to construct and analyze a reversible Markov process, the stationary distribution of which is the Brownian continuum random tree. This process is inspired by the subtree prune and regraft (SPR) Markov chains that appear in phylogenetic analysis. A key technical ingredient in this work is the use of a novel Gromov--Hausdorff type distance to metrize the space whose elements are compact real trees equipped with a probability measure. Also, the investigation of the Dirichlet form hinges on a new path decomposition of the Brownian excursion.
In a random complete and separable metric space that we call the lookdown space, we encode the genealogical distances between all individuals ever alive in a lookdown model with simultaneous multiple reproduction events. We construct families of probability measures on the lookdown space and on an extension of it that allows to include the case with dust. From this construction, we read off the tree-valued $Ξ$-Fleming-Viot processes and deduce path properties. For instance, these processes usually have a.s. càdlàg paths with jumps at the times of large reproduction events. In the case of comin…
We show that any finite-entropy, countable-valued finitary factor of an i.i.d process can also be expressed as a finitary factor of a finite-valued i.i.d process whose entropy is arbitrarily close to the target process. As an application, we give an affirmative answer to a question of van den Berg and Steif about the critical Ising model on $\mathbb{Z}^d$. En route, we prove several results about finitary isomorphisms and finitary factors. Our results are developed in a new framework for processes invariant to a permutation group of a countable set satisfying specific properties. This new fram…
The Fleming-Viot measure-valued diffusion is a Markov process describing the evolution of (allelic) types under mutation, selection and random reproduction. We enrich this process by genealogical relations of individuals so that the random type distribution as well as the genealogical distances in the population evolve stochastically. The state space of this tree-valued enrichment of the Fleming-Viot dynamics with mutation and selection (TFVMS) consists of marked ultrametric measure spaces, equipped with the marked Gromov-weak topology and a suitable notion of polynomials as a separating algeb…
We present a construction of a Lévy continuum random tree (CRT) associated with a super-critical continuous state branching process using the so-called exploration process and a Girsanov's theorem. We also extend the pruning procedure to this super-critical case. Let $ψ$ be a critical branching mechanism. We set $ψ_θ(\cdot)=ψ(\cdot+θ)-ψ(θ)$. Let $Θ=(θ_\infty,+\infty)$ or $Θ=[θ_\infty,+\infty)$ be the set of values of $θ$ for which $ψ_θ$ is a branching mechanism. The pruning procedure allows to construct a decreasing Lévy-CRT-valued Markov process $(\ct_θ,θ\inΘ)$, such that $\mathcal{T}_θ$ has …
Let $X_n(k)$ be the number of vertices at level $k$ in a random recursive tree with $n+1$ vertices. We prove a functional limit theorem for the vector-valued process $(X_{[n^t]}(1),\ldots, X_{[n^t]}(k))_{t\geq 0}$, for each $k\in\mathbb N$. We show that after proper centering and normalization, this process converges weakly to a vector-valued Gaussian process whose components are integrated Brownian motions. This result is deduced from a functional limit theorem for Crump-Mode-Jagers branching processes generated by increasing random walks with increments that have finite second moment.
A grounded M-Lipschitz function on a rooted d-ary tree is an integer-valued map on the vertices that changes by at most along edges and attains the value zero on the leaves. We study the behavior of such functions, specifically, their typical value at the root v_0 of the tree. We prove that the probability that the value of a uniformly chosen random function at v_0 is more than M+t is doubly-exponentially small in t. We also show a similar bound for continuous (real-valued) grounded Lipschitz functions.
We discuss several connections between discrete and continuous random trees. In the discrete setting, we focus on Galton-Watson trees under various conditionings. In particular, we present a simple approach to Aldous' theorem giving the convergence in distribution of the contour process of conditioned Galton-Watson trees towards the normalized Brownian excursion. We also briefly discuss applications to combinatorial trees. In the continuous setting, we use the formalism of real trees, which yields an elegant formulation of the convergence of rescaled discrete trees towards continuous objects. …
In [Aldous,Pitman,1998] a tree-valued Markov chain is derived by pruning off more and more subtrees along the edges of a Galton-Watson tree. More recently, in [Abraham,Delmas,2012], a continuous analogue of the tree-valued pruning dynamics is constructed along Lévy trees. In the present paper, we provide a new topology which allows to link the discrete and the continuous dynamics by considering them as instances of the same strong Markov process with different initial conditions. We construct this pruning process on the space of so-called bi-measure trees, which are metric measure spaces with …
We consider a branching random walk (BRW) taking its values in the $\mathtt{b}$-ary rooted tree $\mathbb W_{ \mathtt{b}}$ (i.e. the set of finite words written in the alphabet $\{ 1, \ldots, \mathtt{b} \}$, with $\mathtt{b}\! \geq \! 2$). The BRW is indexed by a critical Galton--Watson tree conditioned to have $n$ vertices; its offspring distribution is aperiodic and is in the domain of attraction of a $γ$-stable law, $γ\in (1, 2]$. The jumps of the BRW are those of a nearest-neighbour null-recurrent random walk on $\mathbb W_{ \mathtt{b}}$ (reflection at the root of $\mathbb W_{ \mathtt{b}}$ …
Consider distributional fixed point equations of the form R =d f(C_i, R_i, 1 <= i <= N), where f(.) is a possibly random real valued function, N in {0, 1, 2, 3,...} U {infty}, {C_i}_{i=1}^N are real valued random weights and {R_i}_{i >= 1} are iid copies of R, independent of (N, C_1,..., C_N); =d represents equality in distribution. Fixed point equations of this type are of utmost importance for solving many applied probability problems, ranging from average case analysis of algorithms to statistical physics. We develop an Implicit Renewal Theorem that enables the characterization of the power…
