English

Voter model under stochastic resetting

Statistical Mechanics 2023-11-08 v6

Abstract

The voter model is a toy model of consensus formation based on nearest-neighbor interactions. A voter sits at each vertex in a hypercubic lattice (of dimension dd) and is in one of two possible opinion states. The opinion state of each voter flips randomly, at a rate proportional to the fraction of the nearest neighbors that disagree with the voter. If the voters are initially independent and undecided, the model is known to lead to a consensus if and only if d2d\leq 2. In this paper the model is subjected to stochastic resetting: the voters revert independently to their initial opinion according to a Poisson process of fixed intensity (the resetting rate). This resetting prescription induces kinetic equations for the average opinion state and for the two-point function of the model. For initial conditions consisting of undecided voters except for one decided voter at the origin, the one-point function evolves as the probability of presence of a diffusive random walker on the lattice, whose position is stochastically reset to the origin. The resetting prescription leads to a non-equilibrium steady state. For an initial state consisting of independent undecided voters, the density of domain walls in the steady state is expressed in closed form as a function of the resetting rate. This function is differentiable at zero if and only if d5d\geq 5.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2207.08590,
  title  = {Voter model under stochastic resetting},
  author = {Pascal Grange},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2207.08590},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

17 pages, 1 figure; V2: correction to Section 4.3, typos corrected, references added; V3: 25 pages, two-point function corrected, figures and numerical simulations added, generalization to higher dimensions added; V4: 38 pages, appendices added, references added; V5: 48 pages, typos; corrected, clarifications added; V6: references added, Fig. 1 added;

R2 v1 2026-06-25T01:00:36.061Z