Chase-escape is a competitive growth process in which red particles spread to adjacent uncolored sites, while blue particles overtake adjacent red particles. We introduce the variant in which red particles die and describe the phase diagram for the resulting process on infinite d-ary trees. A novel connection to weighted Catalan numbers makes it possible to characterize the critical behavior.
We study a competitive stochastic growth model called chase-escape in which red particles spread to adjacent uncolored sites and blue only to adjacent red sites. Red particles are killed when blue occupies the same site. If blue has rate-1 passage times and red rate-$lambda$, a phase transition occurs for the probability red escapes to infinity on $mathbb Z^d$, $d$-ary trees, and the ladder graph $mathbb Z times {0,1}$. The result on the tree was known, but we provide a new, simpler calculation of the critical value, and observe that it is a lower bound for a variety of graphs. We conclude by showing that red can be stochastically slower than blue, but still escape with positive probability for large enough $d$ on oriented $mathbb Z^d$ with passage times that resemble Bernoulli bond percolation.
Chase-escape percolation is a variation of the standard epidemic spread models. In this model, each site can be in one of three states: unoccupied, occupied by a single prey, or occupied by a single predator. Prey particles spread to neighboring empty sites at rate $p$, and predator particles spread only to neighboring sites occupied by prey particles at rate $1$, killing the prey particle that existed at that site. It was found that the prey can survive with non-zero probability, if $p>p_c$ with $p_c<1$. Using Monte Carlo simulations on the square lattice, we estimate the value of $p_c = 0.49451 pm 0.00001$, and the critical exponents are consistent with the undirected percolation universality class. We define a discrete-time parallel-update version of the model, which brings out the relation between chase-escape and undirected bond percolation. For all $p < p_c$ in $D$-dimensions, the number of predators in the absorbing configuration has a stretched-exponential distribution in contrast to the exponential distribution in the standard percolation theory. We also study the problem starting from the line initial condition with predator particles on all lattice points of the line $y=0$ and prey particles on the line $y=1$. In this case, for $p_c<p < 1$, the center of mass of the fluctuating prey and predator fronts travel at the same speed. This speed is strictly smaller than the speed of an Eden front with the same value of $p$, but with no predators. At $p=1$, the fronts undergo a depinning transition. The fluctuations of the front follow Kardar-Parisi-Zhang scaling both above and below this depinning transition.
A recursive function on a tree is a function in which each leaf has a given value, and each internal node has a value equal to a function of the number of children, the values of the children, and possibly an explicitly specified random element $U$. The value of the root is the key quantity of interest in general. In this first study, all node values and function values are in a finite set $S$. In this note, we describe the limit behavior when the leaf values are drawn independently from a fixed distribution on $S$, and the tree $T_n$ is a random Galton--Watson tree of size $n$.
Distinguishing between continuous and first-order phase transitions is a major challenge in random discrete systems. We study the topic for events with recursive structure on Galton-Watson trees. For example, let $mathcal{T}_1$ be the event that a Galton-Watson tree is infinite, and let $mathcal{T}_2$ be the event that it contains an infinite binary tree starting from its root. These events satisfy similar recursive properties: $mathcal{T}_1$ holds if and only if $mathcal{T}_1$ holds for at least one of the trees initiated by children of the root, and $mathcal{T}_2$ holds if and only if $mathcal{T}_2$ holds for at least two of these trees. The probability of $mathcal{T}_1$ has a continuous phase transition, increasing from 0 when the mean of the child distribution increases above 1. On the other hand, the probability of $mathcal{T}_2$ has a first-order phase transition, jumping discontinuously to a nonzero value at criticality. Given the recursive property satisfied by the event, we describe the critical child distributions where a continuous phase transition takes place. In many cases, we also characterize the event undergoing the phase transition.
When normal and mis`{e}re games are played on bi-type binary Galton-Watson trees (with vertices coloured blue or red and each having either no child or precisely $2$ children), with one player allowed to move along monochromatic edges and the other along non-monochromatic edges, the draw probabilities equal $0$ unless every vertex gives birth to one blue and one red child. On bi-type Poisson trees where each vertex gives birth to Poisson$(lambda)$ offspring in total, the draw probabilities approach $1$ as $lambda rightarrow infty$. We study such emph{nove