English

Explosion and non-explosion for the continuous-time frog model

Probability 2023-09-28 v3

Abstract

We consider the continuous-time frog model on Z\mathbb{Z}. At time t=0t = 0, there are η(x)\eta (x) particles at xZx\in \mathbb{Z}, each of which is represented by a random variable. In particular, (η(x))xZ(\eta(x))_{x \in \mathbb{Z} } is a collection of independent random variables with a common distribution μ\mu, μ(Z+)=1\mu(\mathbb{Z}_+) = 1. The particles at the origin are active, all other ones being assumed as dormant, or sleeping. Active particles perform a simple symmetric continuous-time random walk in Z\mathbb{Z} (that is, a random walk with exp(1)\exp(1)-distributed jump times and jumps 1-1 and 11, each with probability 1/21/2), independently of all other particles. Sleeping particles stay still until the first arrival of an active particle to their location; upon arrival they become active and start their own simple random walks. Different sets of conditions are given ensuring explosion, respectively non-explosion, of the continuous-time frog model. Our results show in particular that if μ\mu is the distribution of eYlnYe^{Y \ln Y} with a non-negative random variable YY satisfying EY<\mathbb{E} Y < \infty, then a.s. no explosion occurs. On the other hand, if a(0,1)a \in (0,1) and μ\mu is the distribution of eXe^X, where P{Xt}=ta\mathbb{P} \{X \geq t \} = t^{-a}, t1t \geq 1, then explosion occurs a.s. The proof relies on a certain type of comparison to a percolation model which we call totally asymmetric discrete inhomogeneous Boolean percolation.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2203.01592,
  title  = {Explosion and non-explosion for the continuous-time frog model},
  author = {Viktor Bezborodov and Luca Di Persio and Peter Kuchling},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2203.01592},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

Further examples and discussion are added; the proofs in section 5 are expanded significantly; minor changes, fixes, corrections, and improvements

R2 v1 2026-06-24T10:00:30.945Z