Maximal displacement in the dd-dimensional branching Brownian motion

We consider a branching Brownian motion evolving in $\mathbb{R}^d$. We prove that the asymptotic behaviour of the maximal displacement is given by a first ballistic order, plus a logarithmic correction that increases with the dimension $d$. The proof is based on simple geometrical evidence. It leads to the interesting following side result: with high probability, for any $d \geq 2$, individuals on the frontier of the process are close parents if and only if they are geographically close.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figure

Branching random walk with selection at critical rate

We consider a branching-selection particle system on the real line. In this model the total size of the population at time $n$ is limited by $\exp\left(a n^{1/3}\right)$. At each step $n$, every individual dies while reproducing independently, making children around their current position according to i.i.d. point processes. Only the $\exp\left(a(n+1)^{1/3}\right)$ rightmost children survive to form the $(n+1)^\mathrm{th}$ generation. This process can be seen as a generalisation of the branching random walk with selection of the $N$ rightmost individuals, introduced by Brunet and Derrida. We obtain the asymptotic behaviour of position of the extremal particles alive at time $n$ by coupling this process with a branching random walk with a killing boundary.Comment: Updated versio

Maximal displacement of a branching random walk in time-inhomogeneous environment

Consider a branching random walk evolving in a macroscopic time-inhomogeneous environment, that scales with the length $n$ of the process under study. We compute the first two terms of the asymptotic of the maximal displacement at time $n$. The coefficient of the first (ballistic) order is obtained as the solution of an optimization problem, while the second term, of order $n^{1/3}$, comes from time-inhomogeneous random walk estimates, that may be of independent interest. This result partially answers a conjecture of Fang and Zeitouni. Same techniques are used to obtain the asymptotic of other quantities, such as the consistent maximal displacement.Comment: 51 pages, to appear in SP

Infinitely ramified point measures and branching L\'evy processes

We call a random point measure infinitely ramified if for every $n\in \mathbb N$, it has the same distribution as the $n$-th generation of some branching random walk. On the other hand, branching L\'evy processes model the evolution of a population in continuous time, such that individuals move in space independently, according to some L\'evy process, and further beget progenies according to some Poissonian dynamics, possibly on an everywhere dense set of times. Our main result connects these two classes of processes much in the same way as in the case of infinitely divisible distributions and L\'evy processes: the value at time $1$ of a branching L\'evy process is an infinitely ramified point measure, and conversely, any infinitely ramified point measure can be obtained as the value at time $1$ of some branching L\'evy process.Comment: To appear in Annals of Probabilit