We show that the squared maximal height of the top path among $N$ non-intersecting Brownian bridges starting and ending at the origin is distributed as the top eigenvalue of a random matrix drawn from the Laguerre Orthogonal Ensemble. This result can
be thought of as a discrete version of K. Johanssons result that the supremum of the Airy$_2$ process minus a parabola has the Tracy-Widom GOE distribution, and as such it provides an explanation for how this distribution arises in models belonging to the KPZ universality class with flat initial data. The result can be recast in terms of the probability that the top curve of the stationary Dyson Brownian motion hits an hyperbolic cosine barrier.
We review the Airy processes; their formulation and how they are conjectured to govern the large time, large distance spatial fluctuations of one dimensional random growth models. We also describe formulas which express the probabilities that they li
e below a given curve as Fredholm determinants of certain boundary value operators, and the several applications of these formulas to variational problems involving Airy processes that arise in physical problems, as well as to their local behaviour.
We prove that the random variable $ct=argmax_{tinrr}{aip(t)-t^2}$ has tails which decay like $e^{-ct^3}$. The distribution of $ct$ is a universal distribution which governs the rescaled endpoint of directed polymers in 1+1 dimensions for large time or temperature.
We investigate an interacting particle system inspired by the gypsy moth, whose populations grow until they become sufficiently dense so that an epidemic reduces them to a low level. We consider this process on a random 3-regular graph and on the $d$
-dimensional lattice and torus, with $dgeq2$. On the finite graphs with global dispersal or with a dispersal radius that grows with the number of sites, we prove convergence to a dynamical system that is chaotic for some parameter values. We conjecture that on the infinite lattice with a fixed finite dispersal distance, distant parts of the lattice oscillate out of phase so there is a unique nontrivial stationary distribution.
We consider a branching-selection system in $mathbb {R}$ with $N$ particles which give birth independently at rate 1 and where after each birth the leftmost particle is erased, keeping the number of particles constant. We show that, as $Ntoinfty$, th
e empirical measure process associated to the system converges in distribution to a deterministic measure-valued process whose densities solve a free boundary integro-differential equation. We also show that this equation has a unique traveling wave solution traveling at speed $c$ or no such solution depending on whether $cgeq a$ or $c<a$, where $a$ is the asymptotic speed of the branching random walk obtained by ignoring the removal of the leftmost particles in our process. The traveling wave solutions correspond to solutions of Wiener-Hopf equations.
