Search Results
Moment asymptotics for branching random walks in random environment
We consider the long-time behaviour of a branching random walk in random environment on the lattice Zd. The migration of particles proceeds according to simple random walk in continuous time, while the medium is given as a random potential of spatially dependent killing/branching rates. The main objects of our interest are the annealed moments m_np , i.e., the p-th moments over the medium of the n-th moment over the migration and killing/branching, of the local and global population sizes. For n = 1, this is well-understood citeGM98, as m_1 is closely connected with the parabolic Anderson model. For some special distributions, citeA00 extended this to ngeq2, but only as to the first term of the asymptotics, using (a recursive version of) a Feynman-Kac formula for m_n. In this work we derive also the second term of the asymptotics, for a much larger class of distributions. In particular, we show that m_n^p m_1^np are asymptotically equal, up to an error e^o(t). The cornerstone of our method is a direct Feynman-Kac-type formula for mn, which we establish using the spine techniques developed in citeHR1.1
Stein variational gradient descent: Many-particle and long-time asymptotics
Stein variational gradient descent (SVGD) refers to a class of methods for Bayesian inference based on interacting particle systems. In this paper, we consider the originally proposed deterministic dynamics as well as a stochastic variant, each of which represent one of the two main paradigms in Bayesian computational statistics: emphvariational inference and emphMarkov chain Monte Carlo. As it turns out, these are tightly linked through a correspondence between gradient flow structures and large-deviation principles rooted in statistical physics. To expose this relationship, we develop the cotangent space construction for the Stein geometry, prove its basic properties, and determine the large-deviation functional governing the many-particle limit for the empirical measure. Moreover, we identify the emphStein-Fisher information (or emphkernelised Stein discrepancy) as its leading order contribution in the long-time and many-particle regime in the sense of $Gamma$-convergence, shedding some light on the finite-particle properties of SVGD. Finally, we establish a comparison principle between the Stein-Fisher information and RKHS-norms that might be of independent interest.
Disruptive events in high-density cellular networks
Stochastic geometry models are used to study wireless networks, particularly cellular phone networks, but most of the research focuses on the typical user, often ignoring atypical events, which can be highly disruptive and of interest to network operators. We examine atypical events when a unexpected large proportion of users are disconnected or connected by proposing a hybrid approach based on ray launching simulation and point process theory. This work is motivated by recent results [12] using large deviations theory applied to the signal-to-interference ratio. This theory provides a tool for the stochastic analysis of atypical but disruptive events, particularly when the density of transmitters is high. For a section of a European city, we introduce a new stochastic model of a single network cell that uses ray launching data generated with the open source RaLaNS package, giving deterministic path loss values. We collect statistics on the fraction of (dis)connected users in the uplink, and observe that the probability of an unexpected large proportion of disconnected users decreases exponentially when the transmitter density increases. This observation implies that denser networks become more stable in the sense that the probability of the fraction of (dis)connected users deviating from its mean, is exponentially small. We also empirically obtain and illustrate the density of users for network configurations in the disruptive event, which highlights the fact that such bottleneck behaviour not only stems from too many users at the cell boundary, but also from the near-far effect of many users in the immediate vicinity of the base station. We discuss the implications of these findings and outline possible future research directions.
Branching random walks in random environment: A survey
We consider branching particle processes on discrete structures like the hypercube in a random fitness landscape (i.e., random branching/killing rates). The main question is about the location where the main part of the population sits at a late time, if the state space is large. For answering this, we take the expectation with respect to the migration (mutation) and the branching/killing (selection) mechanisms, for fixed rates. This is intimately connected with the parabolic Anderson model, the heat equation with random potential, a model that is of interest in mathematical physics because of the observed prominent effect of intermittency (local concentration of the mass of the solution in small islands). We present several advances in the investigation of this effect, also related to questions inspired from biology.
Large deviations of specific empirical fluxes of independent Markov chains, with implications for Macroscopic Fluctuation Theory
We consider a system of independent particles on a finite state space, and prove a dynamic large-deviation principle for the empirical measure-empirical flux pair, taking the specific fluxes rather than net fluxes into account. We prove the large deviations under deterministic initial conditions, and under random initial conditions satisfying a large-deviation principle. We then show how to use this result to generalise a number of principles from Macroscopic Fluctuation Theory to the finite-space setting.
The parabolic Anderson model with acceleration and deceleration
We describe the large-time moment asymptotics for the parabolic Anderson model where the speed of the diffusion is coupled with time, inducing an acceleration or deceleration. We find a lower critical scale, below which the mass flow gets stuck. On this scale, a new interesting variational problem arises in the description of the asymptotics. Furthermore, we find an upper critical scale above which the potential enters the asymptotics only via some average, but not via its extreme values. We make out altogether five phases, three of which can be described by results that are qualitatively similar to those from the constant-speed parabolic Anderson model in earlier work by various authors. Our proofs consist of adaptations and refinements of their methods, as well as a variational convergence method borrowed from finite elements theory.
Random walk on random walks: Low densities
We consider a random walker in a dynamic random environment given by a system of independent simple symmetric random walks. We obtain ballisticity results under two types of perturbations: low particle density, and strong local drift on particles. Surprisingly, the random walker may behave very differently depending on whether the underlying environment particles perform lazy or non-lazy random walks, which is related to a notion of permeability of the system. We also provide a strong law of large numbers, a functional central limit theorem and large deviation bounds under an ellipticity condition.
Large deviations for Brownian intersection measures
We consider $p$ independent Brownian motions in $R^d$. We assume that $pgeq 2$ and $p(d-2)
Connection times in large ad hoc mobile networks
We study connectivity properties in a probabilistic model for a large mobile ad-hoc network. We consider a large number of participants of the system moving randomly, independently and identically distributed in a large domain, with a space-dependent population density of finite, positive order and with a fixed time horizon. Messages are instantly transmitted according to a relay principle, i.e., they are iteratedly forwarded from participant to participant over distances 2R, with 2R the communication radius, until they reach the recipient. In mathematical terms, this is a dynamic continuum percolation model. We consider the connection time of two sample participants, the amount of time over which these two are connected with each other. In the above thermodynamic limit, we find that the connectivity induced by the system can be described in terms of the counterplay of a local, random, and a global, deterministic mechanism, and we give a formula for the limiting behaviour. A prime example of the movement schemes that we consider is the well-known random waypoint model (RWP). Here we describe the decay rate, in the limit of large time horizons, of the probability that the portion of the connection time is less than the expectation.
Random walk on random walks: Higher dimensions
We study the evolution of a random walker on a conservative dynamic random environment composed of independent particles performing simple symmetric random walks, generalizing results of [16] to higher dimensions and more general transition kernels without the assumption of uniform ellipticity or nearest-neighbour jumps. Specifically, we obtain a strong law of large numbers, a functional central limit theorem and large deviation estimates for the position of the random walker under the annealed law in a high density regime. The main obstacle is the intrinsic lack of monotonicity in higher-dimensional, non-nearest neighbour settings. Here we develop more general renormalization and renewal schemes that allow us to overcome this issue. As a second application of our methods, we provide an alternative proof of the ballistic behaviour of the front of (the discrete-time version of) the infection model introduced in [23].