English

Extinction and survival in inherited sterility

Probability 2025-11-18 v2

Abstract

We introduce an interacting particle system which models the inherited sterility method. Individuals evolve on Zd\mathbb{Z}^d according to a contact process with parameter λ>0\lambda>0. With probability p[0,1]p \in [0,1] an offspring is fertile and can give birth to other individuals at rate λ\lambda. With probability 1p1-p, an offspring is sterile and blocks the site it sits on until it dies. The goal is to prove that at fixed λ\lambda, the system survives for large enough pp and dies out for small enough pp. The model is not attractive, since an increase of fertile individuals potentially causes that of sterile ones. However, thanks to a comparison argument with attractive models, we are able to answer our question.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2404.11963,
  title  = {Extinction and survival in inherited sterility},
  author = {Sonia Velasco},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2404.11963},
  year   = {2025}
}