2011/03/09 by J. Theodore Cox, Cox, J. Theodore, Richard Durrett +3 · 2 citations
Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · Medicine · #Stochastic processes and statistical mechanics #Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence #Mathematical and Theoretical Epidemiology and Ecology Models
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1103.1676
We consider particle systems that are perturbations of the voter model and show that when space and time are rescaled the system converges to a solution of a reaction diffusion equation in dimensions d ≥ 3. Combining this result with properties of the PDE, some methods arising from a low density super-Brownian limit theorem, and a block construction, we give general, and often asymptotically sharp, conditions for the existence of non-trivial stationary distributions, and for extinction of one type. As applications, we describe the phase diagrams of three systems when the parameters are close to the voter model: (i) a stochastic spatial Lotka-Volterra model of Neuhauser and Pacala, (ii) a model of the evolution of cooperation of Ohtsuki, Hauert, Lieberman, and Nowak, and (iii) a continuous time version of the non-linear voter model of Molofsky, Durrett, Dushoff, Griffeath, and Levin. The first application confirms a conjecture of Cox and Perkins and the second confirms a conjecture of Ohtsuki et al in the context of certain infinite graphs. An important feature of our general results is that they do not require the process to be attractive.