Skip to main content

Lund University Publications

LUND UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

Rigorous Upper Bound for the Discrete Bak–Sneppen Model

Volkov, Stanislav LU orcid (2022) In Journal of Statistical Physics 186(1).
Abstract

Fix some p∈ [0 , 1] and a positive integer n. The discrete Bak–Sneppen model is a Markov chain on the space of zero-one sequences of length n with periodic boundary conditions. At each moment of time a minimum element (typically, zero) is chosen with equal probability, and it is then replaced alongside both its neighbours by independent Bernoulli(p) random variables. Let ν(n)(p) be the probability that an element of this sequence equals one under the stationary distribution of this Markov chain. It was shown in Barbay and Kenyon (in Proceedings of the Twelfth Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms (Washington, DC, 2001), pp. 928–933, SIAM, Philadelphia, PA, 2001) that... (More)

Fix some p∈ [0 , 1] and a positive integer n. The discrete Bak–Sneppen model is a Markov chain on the space of zero-one sequences of length n with periodic boundary conditions. At each moment of time a minimum element (typically, zero) is chosen with equal probability, and it is then replaced alongside both its neighbours by independent Bernoulli(p) random variables. Let ν(n)(p) be the probability that an element of this sequence equals one under the stationary distribution of this Markov chain. It was shown in Barbay and Kenyon (in Proceedings of the Twelfth Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms (Washington, DC, 2001), pp. 928–933, SIAM, Philadelphia, PA, 2001) that ν(n)(p) → 1 as n→ ∞ when p> 0.54 ⋯ ; the proof there is, alas, not rigorous. The complimentary fact that lim supn→∞ν(n)(p)<1 for p∈ (0 , p) for some p> 0 is much harder; this was eventually shown in Meester and Znamenski (J Stat Phys 109:987–1004, 2002). The purpose of this note is to provide a rigorous proof of the result from Barbay and Kenyon (in Proceedings of the Twelfth Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms (Washington, DC, 2001), pp. 928–933, SIAM, Philadelphia, PA, 2001), as well as to improve it, by showing that ν(n)(p) → 1 when p> 0.45. (Our method, in fact, shows that with some finer tuning the same is true for p> 0.419533.)

(Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Bak–Sneppen model, Renewal theory, Self-organized criticality
in
Journal of Statistical Physics
volume
186
issue
1
article number
8
publisher
Springer
external identifiers
  • scopus:85120922629
ISSN
0022-4715
DOI
10.1007/s10955-021-02838-7
language
English
LU publication?
yes
additional info
Publisher Copyright: © 2021, The Author(s).
id
cf80cc07-eb3a-4562-9c25-0ec843781dd3
date added to LUP
2022-01-27 11:06:40
date last changed
2022-04-19 19:29:18
@article{cf80cc07-eb3a-4562-9c25-0ec843781dd3,
  abstract     = {{<p>Fix some p∈ [0 , 1] and a positive integer n. The discrete Bak–Sneppen model is a Markov chain on the space of zero-one sequences of length n with periodic boundary conditions. At each moment of time a minimum element (typically, zero) is chosen with equal probability, and it is then replaced alongside both its neighbours by independent Bernoulli(p) random variables. Let ν<sup>(</sup><sup>n</sup><sup>)</sup>(p) be the probability that an element of this sequence equals one under the stationary distribution of this Markov chain. It was shown in Barbay and Kenyon (in Proceedings of the Twelfth Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms (Washington, DC, 2001), pp. 928–933, SIAM, Philadelphia, PA, 2001) that ν<sup>(</sup><sup>n</sup><sup>)</sup>(p) → 1 as n→ ∞ when p&gt; 0.54 ⋯ ; the proof there is, alas, not rigorous. The complimentary fact that lim supn→∞ν(n)(p)&lt;1 for p∈ (0 , p<sup>′</sup>) for some p<sup>′</sup>&gt; 0 is much harder; this was eventually shown in Meester and Znamenski (J Stat Phys 109:987–1004, 2002). The purpose of this note is to provide a rigorous proof of the result from Barbay and Kenyon (in Proceedings of the Twelfth Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms (Washington, DC, 2001), pp. 928–933, SIAM, Philadelphia, PA, 2001), as well as to improve it, by showing that ν<sup>(</sup><sup>n</sup><sup>)</sup>(p) → 1 when p&gt; 0.45. (Our method, in fact, shows that with some finer tuning the same is true for p&gt; 0.419533.)</p>}},
  author       = {{Volkov, Stanislav}},
  issn         = {{0022-4715}},
  keywords     = {{Bak–Sneppen model; Renewal theory; Self-organized criticality}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{01}},
  number       = {{1}},
  publisher    = {{Springer}},
  series       = {{Journal of Statistical Physics}},
  title        = {{Rigorous Upper Bound for the Discrete Bak–Sneppen Model}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10955-021-02838-7}},
  doi          = {{10.1007/s10955-021-02838-7}},
  volume       = {{186}},
  year         = {{2022}},
}