On the effect of heterogeneity in stochastic interacting-particle systems
Soft Condensed Matter
2013-02-06 v3 Statistical Mechanics
Abstract
We study stochastic particle systems made up of heterogeneous units. We introduce a general framework suitable to analytically study this kind of systems and apply it to two particular models of interest in economy and epidemiology. We show that particle heterogeneity can enhance or decrease the collective fluctuations depending on the system, and that it is possible to infer the degree and the form of the heterogeneity distribution in the system by measuring only global variables and their fluctuations.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1206.3547,
title = {On the effect of heterogeneity in stochastic interacting-particle systems},
author = {Luis F. Lafuerza and Raul Toral},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1206.3547},
year = {2013}
}