Designing a contact process: the piecewise-homogeneous process on a finite set with applications

Aaron B. Wagner and Venkat Anantharam

Stochastic Processes and their Applications, 2005, vol. 115, issue 1, 117-153

Abstract: We consider how to choose the reproduction rates in a one-dimensional contact process on a finite set to maximize the growth rate of the extinction time with the population size. The constraints are an upper bound on the average reproduction rate, and that the rate profile must be piecewise constant. We show that the optimum growth rate is achieved by a rate profile with at most two rates, and we characterize the solution in terms of a "spatial correlation length" of the supercritical process. We examine the analogous problem for the simpler biased voter model, for which we completely characterize the optimum profile. The contact process proofs make use of a planar-graph duality in the graphical representation, due to Durrett and Schonmann.

Keywords: Contact; process; Biased; voter; model; Oriented; percolation; Phase; transition; Correlation; length; Sensor; networks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304-4149(04)00131-0
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:spapps:v:115:y:2005:i:1:p:117-153

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
https://shop.elsevie ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

Access Statistics for this article

Stochastic Processes and their Applications is currently edited by T. Mikosch

More articles in Stochastic Processes and their Applications from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().