We consider branching Brownian motion on the real line with absorption at zero, in which particles move according to independent Brownian motions with the critical drift of $-sqrt{2}$. Kesten (1978) showed that almost surely this process eventually dies out. Here we obtain upper and lower bounds on the probability that the process survives until some large time $t$. These bounds improve upon results of Kesten (1978), and partially confirm nonrigorous predictions of Derrida and Simon (2007).
We consider critical branching Brownian motion with absorption, in which there is initially a single particle at $x > 0$, particles move according to independent one-dimensional Brownian motions with the critical drift of $-sqrt{2}$, and particles are absorbed when they reach zero. Here we obtain asymptotic results concerning the behavior of the process before the extinction time, as the position $x$ of the initial particle tends to infinity. We estimate the number of particles in the system at a given time and the position of the right-most particle. We also obtain asymptotic results for the configuration of particles at a typical time.
We consider one-dimensional branching Brownian motion in which particles are absorbed at the origin. We assume that when a particle branches, the offspring distribution is supercritical, but the particles are given a critical drift towards the origin so that the process eventually goes extinct with probability one. We establish precise asymptotics for the probability that the process survives for a large time t, building on previous results by Kesten (1978) and Berestycki, Berestycki, and Schweinsberg (2014). We also prove a Yaglom-type limit theorem for the behavior of the process conditioned to survive for an unusually long time, providing an essentially complete answer to a question first addressed by Kesten (1978). An important tool in the proofs of these results is the convergence of a certain observable to a continuous state branching process. Our proofs incorporate new ideas which might be of use in other branching models.
Motivated by the goal of understanding the evolution of populations undergoing selection, we consider branching Brownian motion in which particles independently move according to one-dimensional Brownian motion with drift, each particle may either split into two or die, and the difference between the birth and death rates is a linear function of the position of the particle. We show that, under certain assumptions, after a sufficiently long time, the empirical distribution of the positions of the particles is approximately Gaussian. This provides mathematically rigorous justification for results in the biology literature indicating that the distribution of the fitness levels of individuals in a population over time evolves like a Gaussian traveling wave.
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 $gamma-epsilon$, where $gamma$ 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 $epsilonto 0$, the probability in question decays like $exp{- {beta + o(1)over epsilon^{1/2}}}$, where $beta$ is a positive constant depending on the distribution of the branching random walk. In the special case of i.i.d. Bernoulli$(p)$ random variables (with $0<p<{1over 2}$) assigned on a rooted binary tree, this answers an open question of Robin Pemantle.
We introduce a new class of stochastic partial differential equations (SPDEs) with seed bank modeling the spread of a beneficial allele in a spatial population where individuals may switch between an active and a dormant state. Incorporating dormancy and the resulting seed bank leads to a two-type coupled system of equations with migration between both states. We first discuss existence and uniqueness of seed bank SPDEs and provide an equivalent delay representation that allows a clear interpretation of the age structure in the seed bank component. The delay representation will also be crucial in the proofs. Further, we show that the seed bank SPDEs give rise to an interesting class of on/off moment duals. In particular, in the special case of the F-KPP Equation with seed bank, the moment dual is given by an on/off-branching Brownian motion. This system differs from a classical branching Brownian motion in the sense that independently for all individuals, motion and branching may be switched off for an exponential amount of time after which they get switched on again. Here, as an application of our duality, we show that the spread of a beneficial allele, which in the classical F-KPP Equation, started from a Heaviside intial condition, evolves as a pulled traveling wave with speed $sqrt{2}$, is slowed down significantly in the corresponding seed bank F-KPP model. In fact, by computing bounds on the position of the rightmost particle in the dual on/off-branching Brownian motion, we obtain an upper bound for the speed of propagation of the beneficial allele given by $sqrt{sqrt{5}-1}approx 1.111$ under unit switching rates. This shows that seed banks will indeed slow down fitness waves and preserve genetic variability, in line with intuitive reasoning from population genetics and ecology.