Intermittency on catalysts: three-dimensional simple symmetric exclusion

We continue our study of intermittency for the parabolic Anderson model $\partial u/\partial t = \kappa\Delta u + \xi u$ in a space-time random medium $\xi$, where $\kappa$ is a positive diffusion constant, $\Delta$ is the lattice Laplacian on $\Z^d$, $d \geq 1$, and $\xi$ is a simple symmetric exclusion process on $\Z^d$ in Bernoulli equilibrium. This model describes the evolution of a \emph{reactant} $u$ under the influence of a \emph{catalyst} $\xi$. In G\"artner, den Hollander and Maillard (2007) we investigated the behavior of the annealed Lyapunov exponents, i.e., the exponential growth rates as $t\to\infty$ of the successive moments of the solution $u$. This led to an almost complete picture of intermittency as a function of $d$ and $\kappa$. In the present paper we finish our study by focussing on the asymptotics of the Lyaponov exponents as $\kappa\to\infty$ in the \emph{critical} dimension $d=3$, which was left open in G\"artner, den Hollander and Maillard (2007) and which is the most challenging. We show that, interestingly, this asymptotics is characterized not only by a \emph{Green} term, as in $d\geq 4$, but also by a \emph{polaron} term. The presence of the latter implies intermittency of \emph{all} orders above a finite threshold for $\kappa$.Comment: 38 page

Intermittency on catalysts

The present paper provides an overview of results obtained in four recent papers by the authors. These papers address the problem of intermittency for the Parabolic Anderson Model in a \emph{time-dependent random medium}, describing the evolution of a ``reactant'' in the presence of a ``catalyst''. Three examples of catalysts are considered: (1) independent simple random walks; (2) symmetric exclusion process; (3) symmetric voter model. The focus is on the annealed Lyapunov exponents, i.e., the exponential growth rates of the successive moments of the reactant. It turns out that these exponents exhibit an interesting dependence on the dimension and on the diffusion constant.Comment: 11 pages, invited paper to appear in a Festschrift in honour of Heinrich von Weizs\"acker, on the occasion of his 60th birthday, to be published by Cambridge University Pres

Intermittency on catalysts: Voter model

In this paper we study intermittency for the parabolic Anderson equation $\partial u/\partial t=\kappa\Delta u+\gamma\xi u$ with $u:\mathbb{Z}^d\times[0,\infty)\to\mathbb{R}$, where $\kappa\in[0,\infty)$ is the diffusion constant, $\Delta$ is the discrete Laplacian, $\gamma\in(0,\infty)$ is the coupling constant, and $\xi:\mathbb{Z}^d\times[0,\infty)\to\mathbb{R}$ is a space--time random medium. The solution of this equation describes the evolution of a ``reactant'' $u$ under the influence of a ``catalyst'' $\xi$. We focus on the case where $\xi$ is the voter model with opinions 0 and 1 that are updated according to a random walk transition kernel, starting from either the Bernoulli measure $\nu_{\rho}$ or the equilibrium measure $\mu_{\rho}$, where $\rho\in(0,1)$ is the density of 1's. We consider the annealed Lyapunov exponents, that is, the exponential growth rates of the successive moments of $u$. We show that if the random walk transition kernel has zero mean and finite variance, then these exponents are trivial for $1\leq d\leq4$, but display an interesting dependence on the diffusion constant $\kappa$ for $d\geq 5$, with qualitatively different behavior in different dimensions. In earlier work we considered the case where $\xi$ is a field of independent simple random walks in a Poisson equilibrium, respectively, a symmetric exclusion process in a Bernoulli equilibrium, which are both reversible dynamics. In the present work a main obstacle is the nonreversibility of the voter model dynamics, since this precludes the application of spectral techniques. The duality with coalescing random walks is key to our analysis, and leads to a representation formula for the Lyapunov exponents that allows for the application of large deviation estimates.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/10-AOP535 the Annals of Probability (http://www.imstat.org/aop/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Stretched Exponential Relaxation in the Biased Random Voter Model

We study the relaxation properties of the voter model with i.i.d. random bias. We prove under mild condions that the disorder-averaged relaxation of this biased random voter model is faster than a stretched exponential with exponent $d/(d+\alpha)$, where $0<\alpha\le 2$ depends on the transition rates of the non-biased voter model. Under an additional assumption, we show that the above upper bound is optimal. The main ingredient of our proof is a result of Donsker and Varadhan (1979).Comment: 14 pages, AMS-LaTe

Quenched Lyapunov exponent for the parabolic Anderson model in a dynamic random environment

We continue our study of the parabolic Anderson equation ¿u/¿t =k¿u+¿¿u for the space-time field u: Zd ×[0,8) ¿ R, where k ¿ [0,8) is the diffusion constant, ¿ is the discrete Laplacian, ¿ ¿ (0,8) is the coupling constant, and ¿ : Zd ×[0,8)¿R is a space-time random environment that drives the equation. The solution of this equation describes the evolution of a "reactant" u under the influence of a "catalyst" ¿, both living on Zd. In earlier work we considered three choices for ¿: independent simple random walks, the symmetric exclusion process, and the symmetric voter model, all in equilibrium at a given density. We analyzed the annealed Lyapunov exponents, i.e., the exponential growth rates of the successive moments of u w.r.t. ¿ , and showed that these exponents display an interesting dependence on the diffusion constant k, with qualitatively different behavior in different dimensions d. In the present paper we focus on the quenched Lyapunov exponent, i.e., the exponential growth rate of u conditional on ¿ . We first prove existence and derive some qualitative properties of the quenched Lyapunov exponent for a general ¿ that is stationary and ergodic w.r.t. translations in Zd and satisfies certain noisiness conditions. After that we focus on the three particular choices for ¿ mentioned above and derive some more detailed properties.We close by formulating a number of open problems

Intermittency of catalysts: voter model

Article / Letter to editorMathematisch Instituu

Intermittency on catalysts : symmetric exclusion

We continue our study of intermittency for the parabolic Anderson equation, i.e., the spatially discrete heat equation on the d-dimensional integer lattice with a space-time random potential. The solution of the equation describes the evolution of a "reactant" under the influence of a "catalyst". In this paper we focus on the case where the random field is an exclusion process with a symmetric random walk transition kernel, starting from Bernoulli equilibrium. We consider the annealed Lyapunov exponents, i.e., the exponential growth rates of the successive moments of the solution. We show that these exponents are trivial when the random walk is recurrent, but display an interesting dependence on the diffusion constant when the random walk is transient, with qualitatively different behavior in different dimensions. Special attention is given to the asymptotics of the exponents when the diffusion constant tends to infinity, which is controlled by moderate deviations of the random field requiring a delicate expansion argument. In Gärtner and den Hollander [10] the case of a Poisson field of independent (simple) random walks was studied. The two cases show interesting differences and similarities. Throughout the paper, a comparison of the two cases plays a crucial role

Kinetics of Radioiodinated Heptadecanoic Acid and Metabolites in the Normal and Ischaemic Canine Heart

This study was undertaken to elucidate if the myocardial elimination rate of the radioactivity after administration of radioiodinated heptadecanoic acid was related to beta-oxidation of the fatty acid or related to washout of free radioiodide. In samples of normal and ischaemic myocardium the distribution of the radioactivity over free radioiodide, heptadecanoic acid and lipids was determined. In normal myocardium the major component was free radioiodide, only a small percentage being heptadecanoic acid. In ischaemic myocardium more radiolabelled lipids were present and less free iodide when compared with normal myocardium. The percentage heptadecanoic acid was slightly increased. It is concluded that radioiodinated heptadecanoic acid behaves like the natural analogues regarding uptake and distribution. However, washout of free radioiodide determines the elimination rate as observed during a scintigraphic stud

Relaxation Height in Energy Landscapes: an Application to Multiple Metastable States

The study of systems with multiple (not necessarily degenerate) metastable states presents subtle difficulties from the mathematical point of view related to the variational problem that has to be solved in these cases. We introduce the notion of relaxation height in a general energy landscape and we prove sufficient conditions which are valid even in presence of multiple metastable states. We show how these results can be used to approach the problem of multiple metastable states via the use of the modern theories of metastability. We finally apply these general results to the Blume--Capel model for a particular choice of the parameters ensuring the existence of two multiple, and not degenerate in energy, metastable states