[PAS] Probability Abstracts 97

pas at lists.imstat.org pas at lists.imstat.org
Wed May 2 11:30:58 CDT 2007


Probability Abstracts 97
This document contains abstracts 5305-5549 from
March-1-2007 to Apr-30-2007.
They have been mailed on May 2nd, 2007.

This letter can be also found on line at
http://lists.imstat.org/PAS/Letters/letter_97.shtml


---------------------------------------------------------------

5305. QUADRATIC BSDES WITH RANDOM TERMINAL TIME AND ELLIPTIC PDES IN  
INFINITE  DIMENSION

Philippe Briand and  Fulvia Confortola

In this paper we study one dimensional backward stochastic differential
equations (BSDEs) with random terminal time not necessarily bounded  
or finite
when the generator F(t,Y,Z) has a quadratic growth in Z. We provide  
existence
and uniqueness of a bounded solution of such BSDEs and, in the case  
of infinite
horizon, regular dependence on parameters. The obtained results are then
applied to prove existence and uniqueness of a mild solution to elliptic
partial differential equations in Hilbert spaces.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.1223

---------------------------------------------------------------

5306. INTERSECTION LOCAL TIME FOR TWO INDEPENDENT FRACTIONAL BROWNIAN  
MOTIONS

David Nualart and  Salvador Ortiz-Latorre

We prove the existence of the intersection local time for two  
independent, d
-dimensional fractional Brownian motions with the same Hurst  
parameter H.
Assume d greater or equal to 2, then the intersection local time  
exists if and
only if Hd<2.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.1259

---------------------------------------------------------------

5307. INTEGRAL FORMULAS FOR THE ASYMMETRIC SIMPLE EXCLUSION PROCESS

Craig A. Tracy and  Harold Widom

In this paper we obtain general integral formulas for probabilities  
in the
asymmetric simple exclusion process (ASEP) on the integer lattice  
with nearest
neighbor hopping rates p to the right and q=1-p to the left. For the  
most part
we consider an N-particle system but for certain of these formulas we  
can take
the limit as N goes to infinity. First we obtain, for the N-particle  
system, a
formula for the probability of a configuration at time t, given the  
initial
configuration. For this we use Bethe Ansatz ideas to solve the master  
equation,
extending a result of Schuetz for the case N=2. The main results of  
the paper,
derived from this, are integral formulas for the probability, for  
given initial
configuration, that the m'th left-most particle is at x at time t. In  
one of
these formulas we can take the limit as N goes to infinity, and it  
gives the
probability for an infinite system where the initial configuration is  
bounded
on one side. For the special case of the totally asymmetric simple  
exclusion
process (TASEP) our formulas reduce to the known ones.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.2633

---------------------------------------------------------------

5308. DETERMINING FACTORS BEHIND THE PAGERANK LOG-LOG PLOT

Yana Volkovich and  Nelly Litvak and Debora Donato

We study the relation between PageRank and other parameters of  
information
networks such as in-degree, out-degree, and the fraction of dangling  
nodes. We
model this relation through a stochastic equation inspired by the  
original
definition of PageRank. Further, we use the theory of regular  
variation to
prove that PageRank and in-degree follow power laws with the same  
exponent. The
difference between these two power laws is in a multiple coefficient,  
which
depends mainly on the fraction of dangling nodes, average in-degree,  
the power
law exponent, and damping factor. The out-degree distribution has a  
minor
effect, which we explicitly quantify. Our theoretical predictions  
show a good
agreement with experimental data on three different samples of the Web.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.2694

---------------------------------------------------------------

5309. THE DYNAMICAL DISCRETE WEB

L. R. G. Fontes and  C. M. Newman and  K. Ravishankar and  E. Schertzer

The dynamical discrete web (DDW), introduced in recent work of Howitt  
and
Warren, is a system of coalescing simple symmetric one-dimensional  
random walks
which evolve in an extra continuous dynamical parameter s. The  
evolution is by
independent updating of the underlying Bernoulli variables indexed by  
discrete
space-time that define the discrete web at any fixed s. In this  
paper, we study
the existence of exceptional (random) values of s where the paths of  
the web do
not behave like usual random walks and the Hausdorff dimension of the  
set of
such exceptional s. Our results are motivated by those about  
exceptional times
for dynamical percolation in high dimension by H\"aggstrom, Peres and  
Steif,
and in dimension two by Schramm and Steif. The exceptional behavior  
of the
walks in DDW is rather different from the situation for dynamical  
random walks
of Benjamini, H\"aggstrom, Peres and Steif. In particular, we prove  
that there
are exceptional values of s for which the walk from the origin S^s(n)  
has
limsup S^s(n)/\sqrt n \leq K with a nontrivial dependence of the  
Hausdorff
dimension on K. We also discuss how these and other results extend to  
the
dynamical Brownian web, a natural scaling limit of DDW. The scaling  
limit is
the focus of a paper in preparation; it was studied by Howitt and  
Warren and is
related to the Brownian net of Sun and Swart.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.2706

---------------------------------------------------------------

5310. MULTIDIMENSIONAL SDE WITH ANTICIPATING INITIAL PROCESS AND  
REFLECTION

Zongxia Liang

In this paper, the strong solutions $ (X, L)$ of multidimensional  
stochastic
differential equations with reflecting boundary and possible  
anticipating
initial random variables is established. The key is to obtain some  
substitution
formula for Stratonovich integrals via a uniform convergence of the
corresponding Riemann sums and to prove continuity of functionals of  
$ (X, L)$.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.2715

---------------------------------------------------------------

5311. THE ORDER OF THE DECAY OF THE HOLE PROBABILITY FOR GAUSSIAN  
RANDOM  SU(M+1) POLYNOMIALS

Scott Zrebiec

We show that for Gaussian random SU(m+1) polynomials of a large  
degree N the
probability that there are no zeros in the disk of radius r is less than
$e^{-c_{1,r} N^{m+1}}$, and is also greater than $e^{-c_{2,r} N^{m+1}}$.
Enroute to this result, we also derive a more general result:  
probability
estimates for the event where the volume of the zero set of a random  
polynomial
of high degree deviates significantly from its mean.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.2733

---------------------------------------------------------------

5312. TAMED 3D NAVIER-STOKES EQUATION: EXISTENCE, UNIQUENESS AND  
REGULARITY

Michael R\"ockner and  Xicheng Zhang

In this paper, we prove the existence and uniqueness of a smooth  
solution to
a tamed 3D Navier-Stokes equation in the whole space. In particular,  
if there
exists a bounded smooth solution to the classical 3D Navier-Stokes  
equation,
then this solution satisfies our tamed equation. Moreover, using this
renormalized equation we can give a new construction for a suitable weak
solution of the classical 3D Navier-Stokes equation introduced in  
[Scheffer:
Hausdorff measure and the Navier-Stokes equations. Comm. Math. Phys.,  
1977] and
[Caffarelli, Kohn, Nirenberg: Partial regularity of suitable weak  
solutions of
the Navier-Stokes equations. Comm. Pure Appl. Math., 1982].


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703254

---------------------------------------------------------------

5313. ON STOCHASTIC EVOLUTION EQUATIONS WITH NON-LIPSCHITZ COEFFICIENTS

Xicheng Zhang

In this paper, we study the existence and uniqueness of solutions for  
several
classes of stochastic evolution equations with non-Lipschitz  
coefficients, that
is, backward stochastic evolution equations, stochastic Volterra type  
evolution
equations and stochastic functional evolution equations. In  
particular, the
results can be used to treat a large class of quasi-linear stochastic
equations, which includes the reaction diffusion and porous medium  
equations.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703260

---------------------------------------------------------------

5314. LARGE DEVIATIONS FOR RANDOM WALKS UNDER SUBEXPONENTIALITY: THE  
BIG-JUMP  DOMAIN

D. Denisov and  A. B. Dieker and  V. Shneer

For a given one-dimensional random walk {S_n} with a subexponential  
step-size
distribution, we present a unifying theory to study the sequences  
{x_n} for
which P{S_n>x} \sim n P{S_1>x} as n\to\infty uniformly for x\ge x_n.  
We also
investigate the stronger `local' analogue, P{S_n\in(x,x+T]}\sim n
\pr{S_1\in(x,x+T]}. Our theory is self-contained and fits well within  
classical
results on domains of (partial) attraction and local limit theory.
   When specialized to the most important subclasses of subexponential
distributions that have been studied in the literature, we reproduce  
known
results. Importantly, we supplement these well-known theorems with  
new results.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703265

---------------------------------------------------------------

5315. RATE OF GROWTH OF A TRANSIENT COOKIE RANDOM WALK

Anne-Laure Basdevant (PMA) and  Arvind Singh (PMA)

We consider a one-dimensional transient cookie random walk. It is  
known from
a previous paper that a cookie random walk $(X_n)$ has positive or  
zero speed
according to some positive parameter $\alpha >1$ or $\le 1$. In this  
article,
we give the exact rate of growth of $(X_n)$ in the zero speed regime,  
namely:
for $0<\alpha <1$, $X_n/n^{\frac{\alpha+1}{2}}$ converges in law to a
Mittag-Leffler distribution whereas for $\alpha=1$, $X_n(\log n)/n$  
converges
in probability to some positive constant.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703275

---------------------------------------------------------------

5316. TRANSITION BETWEEN AIRY_1 AND AIRY_2 PROCESSES AND TASEP  
FLUCTUATIONS

Alexei Borodin (1) and  Patrik L. Ferrari (2) and  Tomohiro Sasamoto  
(3) ((1)  Caltech, (2) WIAS Berlin, (3) Chiba University)

We consider the totally asymmetric simple exclusion process, a model  
in the
KPZ universality class. We focus on the fluctuations of particle  
positions
starting with certain deterministic initial conditions. For large  
time t, one
has regions with constant and linearly decreasing density. The  
fluctuations on
these two regions are given by the Airy_1 and Airy_2 processes, whose  
one-point
distributions are the GOE and GUE Tracy-Widom distributions of random  
matrix
theory. In this paper we analyze the transition region between these two
regimes and obtain the transition process. Its one-point distribution  
is a new
interpolation between GOE and GUE edge distributions.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math-ph/0703023

---------------------------------------------------------------

5317. PATH INTEGRALS ON MANIFOLDS BY FINITE DIMENSIONAL APPROXIMATION

Christian Baer and  Frank Pfaeffle

Let M be a compact Riemannian manifold without boundary and let H be a
self-adjoint generalized Laplace operator acting on sections in a  
bundle over
M. We give a path integral formula for the solution to the  
corresponding heat
equation. This is based on approximating path space by finite  
dimensional
spaces of geodesic polygons. We also show a uniform convergence  
result for the
heat kernels. This yields a simple and natural proof for the
Hess-Schrader-Uhlenbrock estimate and a path integral formula for the  
trace of
the heat operator.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703272

---------------------------------------------------------------

5318. PERCOLATION ON SPARSE RANDOM GRAPHS WITH GIVEN DEGREE SEQUENCE

Nikolaos Fountoulakis

We study the two most common types of percolation process on a sparse  
random
graph with a given degree sequence. Namely, we examine first a bond  
percolation
process where the edges of the graph are retained with probability p and
afterwards we focus on site percolation where the vertices are  
retained with
probability p. We establish critical values for p above which a giant  
component
emerges in both cases. Moreover, we show that in fact these coincide.  
As a
special case, our results apply to power law random graphs. We obtain  
rigorous
proofs for formulas derived by several physicists for such graphs.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703269

---------------------------------------------------------------

5319. EXISTENCE AND UNIQUENESS OF NONNEGATIVE SOLUTIONS TO THE  
STOCHASTIC  POROUS MEDIA EQUATION

Viorel Barbu and  Giuseppe Da Prato and Michael R\"ockner

One proves that the stochastic porous media equation in 3-D has a unique
nonnegative solution for nonnegative initial data in $H^{-1}(\mathcal  
O)$ if
the nonlinearity is monotone and has polynomial growth.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703420

---------------------------------------------------------------

5320. EXISTENCE OF STRONG SOLUTIONS FOR STOCHASTIC POROUS MEDIA  
EQUATION UNDER  GENERAL MONOTONICITY CONDITIONS

Viorel Barbu and  Giuseppe Da Prato and Michael R\"ockner

One proves existence and uniqueness of strong solutions to stochastic  
porous
media equations under minimal monotonicity conditions on the  
nonlinearity. In
particular, we do not assume continuity of the drift or any growth  
condition at
infinity.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703421

---------------------------------------------------------------

5321. QUADRATIC BSDES WITH CONVEX GENERATORS AND UNBOUNDED TERMINAL  
CONDITIONS

Philippe Briand (IRMAR) and  Ying Hu (IRMAR)

In a previous work, we proved an existence result for BSDEs with  
quadratic
generators with respect to the variable z and with unbounded terminal
conditions. However, no uniqueness result was stated in that work.  
The main
goal of this paper is to fill this gap. In order to obtain a  
comparison theorem
for this kind of BSDEs, we assume that the generator is convex with  
respect to
the variable z. Under this assumption of convexity, we are also able  
to prove a
stability result in the spirit of the a priori estimates stated in  
the article
of N. El Karoui, S. Peng and M.-C. Quenez. With these tools in hands,  
we can
derive the nonlinear Feynman--Kac formula in this context.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703423

---------------------------------------------------------------

5322. MEAN-VARIANCE HEDGING UNDER PARTIAL INFORMATION

M. Mania and  R. Tevzadze and T. Toronjadze

We consider the mean-variance hedging problem under partial  
Information. The
underlying asset price process follows a continuous semimartingale and
strategies have to be constructed when only part of the information  
in the
market is available. We show that the initial mean variance hedging  
problem is
equivalent to a new mean variance hedging problem with an additional  
correction
term, which is formulated in terms of observable processes. We prove  
that the
value process of the reduced problem is a square trinomial with  
coefficients
satisfying a triangle system of backward stochastic differential  
equations and
the filtered wealth process of the optimal hedging strategy is  
characterized as
a solution of a linear forward equation.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703424

---------------------------------------------------------------

5323. MEASURABILITY OF OPTIMAL TRANSPORTATION AND CONVERGENCE RATE  
FOR LANDAU  TYPE INTERACTING PARTICLE SYSTEMS

Joaquin Fontbona and  Helene Guerin and  Sylvie Meleard

In this paper, we consider nonlinear diffusion processes driven by  
space-time
white noises, which have an interpretation in terms of partial  
differential
equations. For a specific choice of coefficients, they correspond to  
the Landau
equation arising in kinetic theory. A particular feature is that the  
diffusion
matrix of this process is a linear function the law of the process,  
and not a
quadratic one, as in the McKean-Vlasov model. The main goal of the  
paper is to
construct an easily simulable diffusive interacting particle system,  
converging
towards this nonlinear process and to obtain an explicit pathwise rate.
   This requires to find a significant coupling between finitely many  
Brownian
motions and the infinite dimensional white noise process. The key  
idea will be
to construct the right Brownian motions by pushing forward the white  
noise
processes, through the Brenier map realizing the optimal transport  
between the
law of the nonlinear process, and the empirical measure of  
independent copies
of it. A striking problem then is to establish the joint  
measurability of this
optimal transport map with respect to the space variable and the  
parameters
(time and randomness) making the marginals vary. We shall prove a  
general
measurability result for the mass transportation problem in terms of the
support of the transfert plans, in the sense of set-valued mappings.  
This will
allow us to construct the coupling and to obtain explicit convergence  
rates.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703432

---------------------------------------------------------------

5324. ON A MODEL OF RANDOM CYCLES

Daniel Gandolfo and  Jean Ruiz and  Daniel Ueltschi

We introduce a model of random permutations of the sites of the cubic
lattice. Permutations are weighted so that sites are preferably sent  
onto
neighbors. We present numerical evidence for the occurrence of a  
transition to
a phase with infinite, macroscopic cycles.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0703315

---------------------------------------------------------------

5325. THE SMALL DEVIATIONS OF MANY-DIMENSIONAL DIFFUSION PROCESSES  
AND  RAREFACTION BY BOUNDARIES

Vitalii A. Gasanenko

We lead the algorithm of expansion of sojourn probability of many- 
dimensional
diffusion processes in small domain. The principal member of this  
expansion
defines normalizing coefficient for special limit theorems.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.0315

---------------------------------------------------------------

5326. SOLUTIONS OF FRACTIONAL REACTION-DIFFUSION EQUATIONS IN TERMS  
OF THE  H-FUNCTION

H.J. Haubold and  A.M. Mathai and  R.K. Saxena

This paper deals with the investigation of the solution of an unified
fractional reaction-diffusion equation associated with the Caputo  
derivative as
the time-derivative and Riesz-Feller fractional derivative as the
space-derivative. The solution is derived by the application of the  
Laplace and
Fourier transforms in closed form in terms of the H-function. The  
results
derived are of general nature and include the results investigated  
earlier by
many authors, notably by Mainardi et al. (2001, 2005) for the  
fundamental
solution of the space-time fractional diffusion equation, and Saxena  
et al.
(2006a, b) for fractional reaction- diffusion equations. The  
advantage of using
Riesz-Feller derivative lies in the fact that the solution of the  
fractional
reaction-diffusion equation containing this derivative includes the  
fundamental
solution for space-time fractional diffusion, which itself is a  
generalization
of neutral fractional diffusion, space-fractional diffusion, and
time-fractional diffusion. These specialized types of diffusion can be
interpreted as spatial probability density functions evolving in time  
and are
expressible in terms of the H-functions in compact form.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.0329

---------------------------------------------------------------

5327. APPROXIMATION OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF A STATIONARY MARKOV  
PROCESS WITH  APPLICATION TO OPTION PRICING

Fabien Panloup (PMA) and  Gilles Pag{\`e}s (PMA)

We build a sequence of empirical measures on the space D(R_+,R^d) of
R^d-valued c{\`a}dl{\`a}g functions on R_+ in order to approximate  
the law of a
stationary R^d-valued Markov and Feller process (X_t). We obtain some  
general
results of convergence of this sequence. Then, we apply them to Brownian
diffusions and solutions to L{\'e}vy driven SDE's under some Lyapunov- 
type
stability assumptions. As a numerical application of this work, we  
show that
this procedure gives an efficient way of option pricing in stochastic
volatility models.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.0335

---------------------------------------------------------------

5328. EXPONENTIAL GROWTH RATES IN A TYPED BRANCHING DIFFUSION

Y. Git and  J. W. Harris and  S. C. Harris

We study the high temperature phase of a family of typed branching  
diffusions
initially studied in [Ast\'{e}risque 236 (1996) 133--154] and  
[Lecture Notes in
Math. 1729 (2000) 239--256 Springer, Berlin]. The primary aim is to  
establish
some almost-sure limit results for the long-term behavior of this  
particle
system, namely the speed at which the population of particles  
colonizes both
space and type dimensions, as well as the rate at which the  
population grows
within this asymptotic shape. Our approach will include  
identification of an
explicit two-phase mechanism by which particles can build up in  
sufficient
numbers with spatial positions near $-\gamma t$ and type positions  
near $\kappa
\sqrt{t}$ at large times $t$. The proofs involve the application of a  
variety
of martingale techniques--most importantly a ``spine'' construction  
involving a
change of measure with an additive martingale. In addition to the  
model's
intrinsic interest, the methodologies presented contain ideas that  
will adapt
to other branching settings. We also briefly discuss applications to  
traveling
wave solutions of an associated reaction--diffusion equation.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.0380

---------------------------------------------------------------

5329. AVERAGE OPTIMALITY FOR RISK-SENSITIVE CONTROL WITH GENERAL  
STATE SPACE

Anna Ja\'{s}kiewicz

This paper deals with discrete-time Markov control processes on a  
general
state space. A long-run risk-sensitive average cost criterion is used  
as a
performance measure. The one-step cost function is nonnegative and  
possibly
unbounded. Using the vanishing discount factor approach, the optimality
inequality and an optimal stationary strategy for the decision maker are
established.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.0394

---------------------------------------------------------------

5330. RENEWALS FOR EXPONENTIALLY INCREASING LIFETIMES, WITH AN  
APPLICATION TO  DIGITAL SEARCH TREES

Florian Dennert and  Rudolf Gr\"{u}bel

We show that the number of renewals up to time $t$ exhibits  
distributional
fluctuations as $t\to\infty$ if the underlying lifetimes increase at an
exponential rate in a distributional sense. This provides a  
probabilistic
explanation for the asymptotics of insertion depth in random trees  
generated by
a bit-comparison strategy from uniform input; we also obtain a  
representation
for the resulting family of limit laws along subsequences. Our  
approach can
also be used to obtain rates of convergence.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.0398

---------------------------------------------------------------

5331. AN INVARIANCE PRINCIPLE FOR SEMIMARTINGALE REFLECTING BROWNIAN  
MOTIONS  IN DOMAINS WITH PIECEWISE SMOOTH BOUNDARIES

W. Kang and  R. J. Williams

Semimartingale reflecting Brownian motions (SRBMs) living in the  
closures of
domains with piecewise smooth boundaries are of interest in applied  
probability
because of their role as heavy traffic approximations for some  
stochastic
networks. In this paper, assuming certain conditions on the domains and
directions of reflection, a perturbation result, or invariance  
principle, for
SRBMs is proved. This provides sufficient conditions for a process that
satisfies the definition of an SRBM, except for small random  
perturbations in
the defining conditions, to be close in distribution to an SRBM. A  
crucial
ingredient in the proof of this result is an oscillation inequality for
solutions of a perturbed Skorokhod problem. We use the invariance  
principle to
show weak existence of SRBMs under mild conditions. We also use the  
invariance
principle, in conjunction with known uniqueness results for SRBMs, to  
give some
sufficient conditions for validating approximations involving (i)  
SRBMs in
convex polyhedrons with a constant reflection vector field on each  
face of the
polyhedron, and (ii) SRBMs in bounded domains with piecewise smooth  
boundaries
and possibly nonconstant reflection vector fields on the boundary  
surfaces.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.0405

---------------------------------------------------------------

5332. SOLUTIONS OF FRACTIONAL REACTION-DIFFUSION EQUATIONS IN TERMS  
OF THE  H-FUNCTION

H.J. Haubold and  A.M. Mathai and  R.K. Saxena

This paper deals with the investigation of the solution of an unified
fractional reaction-diffusion equation associated with the Caputo  
derivative as
the time-derivative and Riesz-Feller fractional derivative as the
space-derivative. The solution is derived by the application of the  
Laplace and
Fourier transforms in closed form in terms of the H-function. The  
results
derived are of general nature and include the results investigated  
earlier by
many authors, notably by Mainardi et al. (2001, 2005) for the  
fundamental
solution of the space-time fractional diffusion equation, and Saxena  
et al.
(2006a, b) for fractional reaction- diffusion equations. The  
advantage of using
Riesz-Feller derivative lies in the fact that the solution of the  
fractional
reaction-diffusion equation containing this derivative includes the  
fundamental
solution for space-time fractional diffusion, which itself is a  
generalization
of neutral fractional diffusion, space-fractional diffusion, and
time-fractional diffusion. These specialized types of diffusion can be
interpreted as spatial probability density functions evolving in time  
and are
expressible in terms of the H-functions in compact form.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.0329

---------------------------------------------------------------

5333. QUENCHED LIMITS FOR TRANSIENT, ZERO SPEED ONE-DIMENSIONAL  
RANDOM WALK IN  RANDOM ENVIRONMENT

Jonathon Peterson and  Ofer Zeitouni

We consider a nearest-neighbor, one dimensional random walk $\{X_n\}_ 
{n\geq
0}$ in a random i.i.d. environment, in the regime where the walk is  
transient
but with zero speed, so that $X_n$ is of order $n^{s}$ for some $s<1 
$. Under
the quenched law (i.e., conditioned on the environment), we show that  
no limit
laws are possible: there exist sequences $\{n_k\}$ and $\{x_k\}$  
depending on
the environment only, such that $X_{n_k}-x_k=o(\log n_k)^2$ (a localized
regime). On the other hand, there exist sequences $\{t_m\}$ and $\{s_m 
\}$
depending on the environment only, such that $\log t_m/\log s_m\to s<1 
$ and
$P_\omega(X_{t_m}/s_m\leq x)\to 1/2$ for all $x>0$ and $\to 0$ for $x 
\leq 0$ (a
spread out regime).


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.1778

---------------------------------------------------------------

5334. REPRESENTATION THEOREMS FOR QUADRATIC ${\CAL F}$-CONSISTENT  
NONLINEAR  EXPECTATIONS

Ying Hu (IRMAR) and  Jin Ma (Department of Mathematics) and  Shige  
Peng  (Institute of Mathematics), Song Yao (Department of Mathematics)

In this paper we extend the notion of ``filtration-consistent nonlinear
expectation" (or "${\cal F}$-consistent nonlinear expectation") to  
the case
when it is allowed to be dominated by a $g$-expectation that may have a
quadratic growth. We show that for such a nonlinear expectation many
fundamental properties of a martingale can still make sense,  
including the
Doob-Meyer type decomposition theorem and the optional sampling  
theorem. More
importantly, we show that any quadratic ${\cal F}$-consistent nonlinear
expectation with a certain domination property must be a quadratic
$g$-expectation. The main contribution of this paper is the finding  
of the
domination condition to replace the one used in all the previous  
works, which
is no longer valid in the quadratic case. We also show that the  
representation
generator must be deterministic, continuous, and actually must be of  
the simple
form.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.1796

---------------------------------------------------------------

5335. GENERALIZED SMIRNOV STATISTICS AND THE DISTRIBUTION OF PRIME  
FACTORS

Kevin Ford

We apply recent bounds of the author (math.PR/0609224) for generalized
Smirnov statistics to the distribution of integers whose prime  
factors satisfy
certain systems of inequalities.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.1789

---------------------------------------------------------------

5336. TYPICAL SUPPORT AND SANOV LARGE DEVIATIONS OF CORRELATED STATES

I. Bjelakovic and  J.-D. Deuschel and  T. Krueger and  R. Seiler and   
Ra.  Siegmund-Schultze, A. Szkola

Discrete stationary classical processes as well as quantum lattice  
states are
asymptotically confined to their respective typical support, the  
exponential
growth rate of which is given by the (maximal ergodic) entropy. In  
the iid case
the distinguishability of typical supports can be asymptotically  
specified by
means of the relative entropy, according to Sanov's theorem. We give an
extension to the correlated case, referring to the newly introduced  
class of
HP-states.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703772

---------------------------------------------------------------

5337. QUASI-STATIONARITY FOR POPULATION DIFFUSION PROCESSES

Patrick Cattiaux (CMAP and  LSProba) and  Pierre Collet (CPHT) and   
Amaury Lambert  (FESE), Servet Martinez (CMM), Sylvie M{\'e}l{\'e}ard  
(CMAP), Jaime San
   Martin (CMM)

In this paper, we study quasi-stationarity for a large class of  
Kolmogorov
diffusions, that is, existence of a quasi-stationary distribution,  
conditional
convergence to such a distribution, construction of a $Q$-process  
(process
conditioned to be never extinct). The main novelty here is that we  
allow the
drift to go to $- \infty$ at the origin, and the diffusion to have an  
entrance
boundary at $+\infty$. These diffusions arise as images, by a  
deterministic
map, of generalized Feller diffusions, which themselves are obtained  
as limits
of rescaled birth--death processes. Generalized Feller diffusions take
non-negative values and are absorbed at zero in finite time with  
probability 1.
A toy example is the logistic Feller diffusion. We give sufficient  
conditions
on the drift near 0 and near $+ \infty$ for the existence of quasi- 
stationary
distributions, as well as rate of convergence, and existence of the
$Q$-process. We also show that under these conditions, there is  
exactly one
conditional limiting distribution (which implies uniqueness of the
quasi-stationary distribution) if and only if the process comes down  
from
infinity. Proofs are based on spectral theory. Here the reference  
measure is
the natural symmetric measure for the killed process, and we use in an
essential way the Girsanov transform.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703781

---------------------------------------------------------------

5338. QUENCHED INVARIANCE PRINCIPLE FOR MULTIDIMENSIONAL BALLISTIC  
RANDOM WALK  IN A RANDOM ENVIRONMENT WITH A FORBIDDEN DIRECTION

Firas Rassoul-Agha and  Timo Sepp\"{a}l\"{a}inen

We consider a ballistic random walk in an i.i.d. random environment  
that does
not allow retreating in a certain fixed direction. We prove an  
invariance
principle (functional central limit theorem) under almost every fixed
environment. The assumptions are nonnestling, at least two spatial  
dimensions,
and a $2+\epsilon$ moment for the step of the walk uniformly in the
environment. The main point behind the invariance principle is that the
quenched mean of the walk behaves subdiffusively.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703787

---------------------------------------------------------------

5339. UN TH\'{E}OR\`{E}ME LIMITE POUR LES COVARIANCES DES SPINS DANS  
LE  MOD\`{E}LE DE SHERRINGTON--KIRKPATRICK AVEC CHAMP EXTERNE

Albert Hanen

On \'{e}tudie la covariance (pour la mesure de Gibbs) des spins en  
deux sites
dans le cas d'un mod\`{e}le de Sherrington--Kirkpatrick avec champ  
externe;
lorsque le nombre de sites du mod\`{e}le tend vers l'infini, une \'{e} 
valuation
asymptotique des moments d'ordre $p$ de cette covariance permet  
d'obtenir un
th\'{e}or\`{e}me limite faible avec une loi limite en g\'{e}n\'{e}ral  
non
gaussienne. We study the covariance (for Gibbs measure) of spins at  
two sites
in the case of a Sherrington--Kirkpatrick model with an external  
field. When
the number of sites of the model grows to infinity, an asymptotic  
evaluation of
the $p$ moments of that covariance allows us to obtain a weak limit  
theorem,
with a generally non-Gaussian limit law.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703790

---------------------------------------------------------------

5340. GLOBAL FLOWS FOR STOCHASTIC DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS WITHOUT  
GLOBAL  LIPSCHITZ CONDITIONS

Shizan Fang and  Peter Imkeller and  Tusheng Zhang

We consider stochastic differential equations driven by Wiener  
processes. The
vector fields are supposed to satisfy only local Lipschitz  
conditions. The
Lipschitz constants of the drift vector field, valid on balls of  
radius $R$,
are supposed to grow not faster than $\log R$, while those of the  
diffusion
vector fields are supposed to grow not faster than $\sqrt{\log R}.$ We
regularize the stochastic differential equations by associating with  
them
approximating ordinary differential equations obtained by  
discretization of the
increments of the Wiener process on small intervals. By showing that  
the flow
associated with a regularized equation converges uniformly to the  
solution of
the stochastic differential equation, we simultaneously establish the  
existence
of a global flow for the stochastic equation under local Lipschitz  
conditions.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703791

---------------------------------------------------------------

5341. COMPARISON OF SEMIMARTINGALES AND L\'{E}VY PROCESSES

Jan Bergenthum and  Ludger R\"{u}schendorf

In this paper, we derive comparison results for terminal values of
$d$-dimensional special semimartingales and also for finite-dimensional
distributions of multivariate L\'{e}vy processes. The comparison is with
respect to nondecreasing, (increasing) convex, (increasing)  
directionally
convex and (increasing) supermodular functions. We use three different
approaches. In the first approach, we give sufficient conditions on  
the local
predictable characteristics that imply ordering of terminal values of
semimartingales. This generalizes some recent convex comparison  
results of
exponential models in [Math. Finance 8 (1998) 93--126, Finance Stoch.  
4 (2000)
209--222, Proc. Steklov Inst. Math. 237 (2002) 73--113, Finance  
Stoch. 10
(2006) 222--249]. In the second part, we give comparison results for
finite-dimensional distributions of L\'{e}vy processes with infinite L 
\'{e}vy
measure. In the first step, we derive a comparison result for Markov  
processes
based on a monotone separating transition kernel. By a coupling  
argument, we
get an application to the comparison of compound Poisson processes.  
These
comparisons are then extended by an approximation argument to the  
ordering of
L\'{e}vy processes with infinite L\'{e}vy measure. The third approach  
is based
on mixing representations which are known for several relevant  
distribution
classes. We discuss this approach in detail for the comparison of  
generalized
hyperbolic distributions and for normal inverse Gaussian processes.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703793

---------------------------------------------------------------

5342. ASYMPTOTIC DEVELOPMENTS AT ANY TIME FOR FRACTIONAL SDES OF  
HURST INDEX  H>1/2

S\'ebastien Darses (LM-Besan\c{c}on) and  Ivan Nourdin (LM-Besan\c{c}on)

We study the asymptotic developments with respect to $h$ of E[D_h f 
(X_t)],
E[D_h f(X_t)|F_t] and E[D_h f(X_t)|X_t], where D_h f(X_t)=f(X_{t+h})-f 
(X_t),
when f:R->R is a smooth real function, t is a fixed time, X is the  
solution of
a one-dimensional stochastic differential equation driven by a  
fractional
Brownian motion of Hurst index H>1/2 and F is its natural filtration.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703794

---------------------------------------------------------------

5343. EXTREMAL BEHAVIOR OF STOCHASTIC INTEGRALS DRIVEN BY REGULARLY  
VARYING  L\'{E}VY PROCESSES

Henrik Hult and  Filip Lindskog

We study the extremal behavior of a stochastic integral driven by a
multivariate L\'{e}vy process that is regularly varying with index $ 
\alpha>0$.
For predictable integrands with a finite $(\alpha+\delta)$-moment,  
for some
$\delta>0$, we show that the extremal behavior of the stochastic  
integral is
due to one big jump of the driving L\'{e}vy process and we determine  
its limit
measure associated with regular variation on the space of c\`{a}dl\`{a}g
functions.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703802

---------------------------------------------------------------

5344. THE TRAP OF COMPLACENCY IN PREDICTING THE MAXIMUM

J. du Toit and  G. Peskir

Given a standard Brownian motion $B^{\mu}=(B_t^{\mu})_{0\le t\le T}$  
with
drift $\mu \in \mathbb{R}$ and letting $S_t^{\mu}=\max_{0\le s\le t} 
B_s^{\mu}$
for $0\le t\le T$, we consider the optimal prediction problem: \[V= 
\inf_{0\le
\tau \le T}\mathsf{E}(B_{\tau}^{\mu}-S_T^{\mu})^2\] where the infimum  
is taken
over all stopping times $\tau$ of $B^{\mu}$. Reducing the optimal  
prediction
problem to a parabolic free-boundary problem we show that the following
stopping time is optimal: \[\tau_*=\inf \{t_*\le t\le T\mid b_1(t)\le
S_t^{\mu}-B_t^{\mu}\le b_2(t)\}\] where $t_*\in [0,T)$ and the functions
$t\mapsto b_1(t)$ and $t\mapsto b_2(t)$ are continuous on $[t_*,T]$ with
$b_1(T)=0$ and $b_2(T)=1/2\mu$. If $\mu>0$, then $b_1$ is decreasing  
and $b_2$
is increasing on $[t_*,T]$ with $b_1(t_*)=b_2(t_*)$ when $t_*\ne 0$.  
Using
local time-space calculus we derive a coupled system of nonlinear  
Volterra
integral equations of the second kind and show that the pair of optimal
boundaries $b_1$ and $b_2$ can be characterized as the unique  
solution to this
system. This also leads to an explicit formula for $V$ in terms of  
$b_1$ and
$b_2$. If $\mu \le 0$, then $t_*=0$ and $b_2\equiv +\infty$ so that $ 
\tau_*$ is
expressed in terms of $b_1$ only. In this case $b_1$ is decreasing on  
$[z_*,T]$
and increasing on $[0,z_*)$ for some $z_*\in [0,T)$ with $z_*=0$ if $ 
\mu=0$,
and the system of two Volterra equations reduces to one Volterra  
equation. If
$\mu=0$, then there is a closed form expression for $b_1$. This  
problem was
solved in [Theory Probab. Appl. 45 (2001) 125--136] using the method  
of time
change (i.e., change of variables). The method of time change cannot be
extended to the case when $\mu \ne 0$ and the present paper settles the
remaining cases using a different approach.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703805

---------------------------------------------------------------

5345. MULTIVARIABLE APPROXIMATE CARLEMAN-TYPE THEOREMS FOR COMPLEX  
MEASURES

Isabelle Chalendar and  Jonathan R. Partington

We prove a multivariable approximate Carleman theorem on the  
determination of
complex measures on ${\mathbb{R}}^n$ and ${\mathbb{R}}^n_+$ by their  
moments.
This is achieved by means of a multivariable Denjoy--Carleman maximum  
principle
for quasi-analytic functions of several variables. As an application,  
we obtain
a discrete Phragm\'{e}n--Lindel\"{o}f-type theorem for analytic  
functions on
${\mathbb{C}}_+^n$.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703809

---------------------------------------------------------------

5346. A PROOF OF THE SMOOTHNESS OF THE FINITE TIME HORIZON AMERICAN  
PUT OPTION  FOR JUMP DIFFUSIONS

Erhan Bayraktar

We give a new proof of the fact that the value function of the finite  
time
horizon American put option for a jump diffusion, when the jumps are  
from a
compound Poisson process, is the classical solution of a quasi- 
variational
inequality and it is $C^1$ across the optimal stopping boundary. Our  
proof only
uses the classical theory of parabolic partial differential equations of
\cite{friedmansde} and does not use the \emph{the theory of vicosity
solutions}, since our proof relies on constructing a sequence of  
functions,
each of which is a value function of an optimal stopping time for a
\emph{diffusion}. The sequence is constructed by iterating a functional
operator that maps a certain class of convex functions to smooth  
functions
satisfying variational inequalities (or to value functions of optimal  
stopping
problems involving only a diffusion). The approximating sequence  
converges to
the value function exponentially fast, therefore it constitutes a good
approximation scheme, since the optimal stopping problems for  
diffusions can be
readily solved. Our technique also lets one see why the jump- 
diffusion control
problems may be smoother than the control problems with piece-wise
deterministic Markov processes: In the former case the sequence of  
functions
that converge to the value function is a sequence of value function  
of control
problems for diffusions, and in the latter case the converging  
sequence is a
sequence of the value functions of deterministic optimal control  
problems. The
first of these sequences is known to be smoother than the second one.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703782

---------------------------------------------------------------

5347. EXISTENCE AND STABILITY FOR FOKKER-PLANCK EQUATIONS WITH LOG- 
CONCAVE  REFERENCE MEASURE

Luigi Ambrosio and  Giuseppe Savare and  Lorenzo Zambotti

We study Markov processes associated with stochastic differential  
equations,
whose non-linearities are gradients of convex functionals. We prove a  
general
result of existence of such Markov processes and a priori estimates  
on the
transition probabilities. The main result is the following stability  
property:
if the associated invariant measures converge weakly, then the Markov  
processes
converge in law. The proofs are based on the interpretation of a  
Fokker-Planck
equation as the steepest descent flow of the relative Entropy  
functional in the
space of probability measures, endowed with the Wasserstein distance.
Applications include stochastic partial differential equations and  
convergence
of equilibrium fluctuations for a class of random interfaces.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.2458

---------------------------------------------------------------

5348. VACANT SET OF RANDOM INTERLACEMENTS AND PERCOLATION

Alain-Sol Sznitman

We introduce a model of random interlacements made of a countable  
collection
of doubly infinite paths on Z^d, d bigger or equal to 3. A non-negative
parameter u measures how many trajectories enter the picture. This model
describes in the large N limit the microscopic structure in the bulk,  
which
arises when considering the disconnection time of a discrete cylinder  
with base
a d-1 dimensional discrete torus of side-length N, or the set of  
points visited
by simple random walk on the d dimensional discrete torus of side- 
length N by
times of order uN^d. We study the percolative properties of the  
vacant set left
by the interlacement at level u, which is an infinite connected  
translation
invariant random subset of Z^d. We introduce a critical value such  
that the
vacant set percolates for u below the critical value, and does not  
percolate
for u above the critical value. Our main results show that the  
critical value
is finite when d is bigger or equal to 3, and strictly positive when  
d is
bigger or equal to 7.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.2560

---------------------------------------------------------------

5349. DISTRIBUTIONS OF ROOTS OF REDUCED CUBIC EQUATIONS WITH RANDOM   
COEFFICIENTS

Kerry M. Soileau

If the coefficients of polynomials are selected by some random  
process, the
zeros of the resulting polynomials are in some sense random. In this  
paper the
author rephrases the above in more precise language, and calculates  
the joint
conditional densities of a random vector whose values determine  
almost surely
the zeros of a "random" reduced cubic.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.2586

---------------------------------------------------------------

5350. STRUCTURAL ADAPTATION VIA $L_P$-NORM ORACLE INEQUALITIES

A. Goldenhsluger and O. Lepski

In this paper we study the problem of adaptive estimation of a  
multivariate
function satisfying some structural assumption. We propose a novel  
estimation
procedure that adapts simultaneously to unknown structure and  
smoothness of the
underlying function. The problem of structural adaptation is stated  
as the
problem of selection from a given collection of estimators. We develop a
general selection rule and establish for it global oracle  
inequalities under
arbitrary $\rL_p$--losses. These results are applied for adaptive  
estimation in
the additive multi--index model.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.2492

---------------------------------------------------------------

5351. A QUENCHED CLT FOR SUPER-BROWNIAN MOTION WITH RANDOM IMMIGRATION

Wenming Hong and  Ofer Zeitouni

A quenched central limit theorem is derived for the super-Brownian  
motion
with super-Brownian immigration, in dimension $d\geq 4$. At the critical
dimension $d=4$, the quenched and annealed fluctuations are of the  
same order
but are not equal.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703573

---------------------------------------------------------------

5352. ON AN EXPLICIT SKOROKHOD EMBEDDING FOR SPECTRALLY NEGATIVE  
LEVY  PROCESSES

Jan Obloj and  Martijn Pistorius

We solve explicitly the Skorokhod embedding problem for spectrally  
negative
L\'evy processes. Given a process $X$ and a target measure $\mu$  
satisfying
explicit admissibility condition we provide functions $\f_\pm$ such  
that the
stopping time $T = \inf\{t>0: X_t \in \{-\f_-(L_t), \f_+(L_t)\}\}$  
induces
$X_T\sim \mu$. We also treat versions of $T$ which take into account  
the sign
of the excursion straddling time $t$. We prove that our stopping  
times are
minimal and we describe criteria under which they are integrable. Our  
method
relies on some new explicit calculations relating scale functions and  
the It\^o
excursion measure of $X$. Finally, we compare our solution with the one
proposed by Bertoin and Le Jan (1992). In particular, we compute  
explicitly
their general quantities in our setup.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703597

---------------------------------------------------------------

5353. USE OF AN HOURGLASS MODEL IN NEURONAL CODING

Marie Cottrell (SAMOS and  Matisse) and  Tatiana Turova (DMS Lund)

We study a system of interacting renewal processes which is a model for
neuronal activity. We show that the system possesses an exponentially  
large
number (with respect to the number of neurons in the network) of  
limiting
configurations of the "firing neurons". These we call patterns.  
Furthermore,
under certain conditions of symmetry we find an algorithm to control  
limiting
patterns by means of the connection parameters.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703010

---------------------------------------------------------------

5354. ASYMPTOTIC DISTRIBUTIONS OF THE SIGNAL-TO-INTERFERENCE RATIOS  
OF LMMSE  DETECTION IN MULTIUSER COMMUNICATIONS

Guang-Ming Pan and  Mei-Hui Guo and  Wang Zhou

Let ${\mathbf{s}}_k=\frac{1}{\sqrt{N}}(v_{1k},...,v_{Nk})^T,$  
$k=1,...,K$,
where $\{v_{ik},i,k$ $=1,...\}$ are independent and identically  
distributed
random variables with $Ev_{11}=0$ and $Ev_{11}^2=1$. Let
${\mathbf{S}}_k=({\mathbf{s}}_1,...,{\mathbf{s}}_{k-1},$
${\mathbf{s}}_{k+1},...,{\mathbf{s}}_K)$, ${\mathbf{P}}_k=\operatorname
{diag}(p_1,...,$ $p_{k-1},p_{k+1},...,p_K)$ and
$\beta_k=p_k{\mathbf{s}}_k^T({\mathb
f{S}}_k{\mathbf{P}}_k{\mathbf{S}}_k^T+\sigma^2{\mathbf{I}})^{-1}{\math
bf{s}}_k$, where $p_k\geq 0$ and the $\beta_k$ is referred to as the
signal-to-interference ratio (SIR) of user $k$ with linear minimum  
mean-square
error (LMMSE) detection in wireless communications. The joint  
distribution of
the SIRs for a finite number of users and the empirical distribution  
of all
users' SIRs are both investigated in this paper when $K$ and $N$ tend to
infinity with the limit of their ratio being positive constant.  
Moreover, the
sum of the SIRs of all users, after subtracting a proper value, is  
shown to
have a Gaussian limit.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703014

---------------------------------------------------------------

5355. SINGULARLY PERTURBED MARKOV CHAINS: LIMIT RESULTS AND APPLICATIONS

George Yin and  Hanqin Zhang

This work focuses on time-inhomogeneous Markov chains with two time  
scales.
Our motivations stem from applications in reliability and dependability,
queueing networks, financial engineering and manufacturing systems,  
where
two-time-scale scenarios naturally arise. One of the important  
questions is: As
the rate of fluctuation of the Markov chain goes to infinity, if the  
limit
distributions of suitably centered and scaled sequences of occupation  
measures
exist, what can be said about the convergence rate? By combining  
singular
perturbation techniques and probabilistic methods, this paper  
addresses the
issue by concentrating on sequences of centered and scaled functional
occupation processes. The results obtained are then applied to treat  
a queueing
system example.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703017

---------------------------------------------------------------

5356. POISSON LIMITS OF SUMS OF POINT PROCESSES AND A PARTICLE- 
SURVIVOR MODEL

Matthew O. Jones and  Richard F. Serfozo

We present sufficient conditions for sums of dependent point  
processes to
converge in distribution to a Poisson process. This extends the  
classical
result of Grigelionis [Theory Probab. Appl. 8 (1963) 172--182] for  
sums of
uniformly null point processes that have Poisson limits. Included is an
application in which a particle-survivor point process converges to a  
Poisson
process. This result sheds light on the ``surprising'' Poisson limit  
of the
species competition process of Durrett and Limic [Stochastic Process.  
Appl. 102
(2002) 301--309].


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703018

---------------------------------------------------------------

5357. READING POLICIES FOR JOINS: AN ASYMPTOTIC ANALYSIS

Ralph P. Russo and  Nariankadu D. Shyamalkumar

Suppose that $m_n$ observations are made from the distribution $ 
\mathbf {R}$
and $n-m_n$ from the distribution $\mathbf {S}$. Associate with each  
pair, $x$
from $\mathbf {R}$ and $y$ from $\mathbf {S}$, a nonnegative score $ 
\phi(x,y)$.
An optimal reading policy is one that yields a sequence $m_n$ that  
maximizes
$\mathbb{E}(M(n))$, the expected sum of the $(n-m_n)m_n$ observed  
scores,
uniformly in $n$. The alternating policy, which switches between the two
sources, is the optimal nonadaptive policy. In contrast, the greedy  
policy,
which chooses its source to maximize the expected gain on the next  
step, is
shown to be the optimal policy. Asymptotics are provided for the case  
where the
$\mathbf {R}$ and $\mathbf {S}$ distributions are discrete and $\phi 
(x,y)=1 or
0$ according as $x=y$ or not (i.e., the observations match).  
Specifically, an
invariance result is proved which guarantees that for a wide class of  
policies,
including the alternating and the greedy, the variable M(n) obeys the  
same CLT
and LIL. A more delicate analysis of the sequence $\mathbb{E}(M(n))$  
and the
sample paths of M(n), for both alternating and greedy, reveals the  
slender
sense in which the latter policy is asymptotically superior to the  
former, as
well as a sense of equivalence of the two and robustness of the former.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703019

---------------------------------------------------------------

5358. SMALL-WORLD MCMC AND CONVERGENCE TO MULTI-MODAL DISTRIBUTIONS:  
FROM SLOW  MIXING TO FAST MIXING

Yongtao Guan and  Stephen M. Krone

We compare convergence rates of Metropolis--Hastings chains to multi- 
modal
target distributions when the proposal distributions can be of  
``local'' and
``small world'' type. In particular, we show that by adding occasional
long-range jumps to a given local proposal distribution, one can turn  
a chain
that is ``slowly mixing'' (in the complexity of the problem) into a  
chain that
is ``rapidly mixing.'' To do this, we obtain spectral gap estimates  
via a new
state decomposition theorem and apply an isoperimetric inequality for
log-concave probability measures. We discuss potential applicability  
of our
result to Metropolis-coupled Markov chain Monte Carlo schemes.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703021

---------------------------------------------------------------

5359. TAILS OF RANDOM SUMS OF A HEAVY-TAILED NUMBER OF LIGHT-TAILED  
TERMS

Christian Y. Robert and Johan Segers

The tail of the distribution of a sum of a random number of  
independent and
identically distributed nonnegative random variables depends on the  
tails of
the number of terms and of the terms themselves. This situation is of  
interest
in the collective risk model, where the total claim size in a  
portfolio is the
sum of a random number of claims. If the tail of the claim number is  
heavier
than the tail of the claim sizes, then under certain conditions the  
tail of the
total claim size does not change asymptotically if the individual  
claim sizes
are replaced by their expectations. The conditions allow the claim  
number
distribution to be of consistent variation or to be in the domain of  
attraction
of a Gumbel distribution with a mean excess function that grows to  
infinity
sufficiently fast. Moreover, the claim number is not necessarily  
required to be
independent of the claim sizes.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703022

---------------------------------------------------------------

5360. THE RADIAL SPANNING TREE OF A POISSON POINT PROCESS

Francois Baccelli and  Charles Bordenave

We analyze a class of spatial random spanning trees built on a  
realization of
a homogeneous Poisson point process of the plane. This tree has a  
simple radial
structure with the origin as its root. We first use stochastic geometry
arguments to analyze local functionals of the random tree such as the
distribution of the length of the edges or the mean degree of the  
vertices. Far
away from the origin, these local properties are shown to be close to  
those of
a variant of the directed spanning tree introduced by Bhatt and Roy.  
We then
use the theory of continuous state space Markov chains to analyze  
some nonlocal
properties of the tree, such as the shape and structure of its semi- 
infinite
paths or the shape of the set of its vertices less than $k$  
generations away
from the origin. This class of spanning trees has applications in  
many fields
and, in particular, in communications.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703024

---------------------------------------------------------------

5361. RECURRENCE OF EDGE-REINFORCED RANDOM WALK ON A TWO-DIMENSIONAL  
GRAPH

Franz Merkl and Silke W.W. Rolles

We consider linearly edge-reinforced random walk on a class of
two-dimensional graphs with constant initial weights. The graphs are  
obtained
from Z^2 by replacing every edge by a sufficiently large, but fixed  
number of
edges in series. We prove that linearly edge-reinforced random walk  
on these
graphs is recurrent. Furthermore, we derive bounds for the  
probability that the
edge-reinforced random walk hits the boundary of a large box before  
returning
to its starting point.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703027

---------------------------------------------------------------

5362. SELECT SETS: RANK AND FILE

Abba M. Krieger and  Moshe Pollak and  Ester Samuel-Cahn

In many situations, the decision maker observes items in sequence and  
needs
to determine whether or not to retain a particular item immediately  
after it is
observed. Any decision rule creates a set of items that are selected. We
consider situations where the available information is the rank of a  
present
observation relative to its predecessors. Certain ``natural''  
selection rules
are investigated. Theoretical results are presented pertaining to the  
evolution
of the number of items selected, measures of their quality and the  
time it
would take to amass a group of a given size.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703032

---------------------------------------------------------------

5363. EXISTENCE OF INDEPENDENT RANDOM MATCHING

Darrell Duffie and  Yeneng Sun

This paper shows the existence of independent random matching of a large
(continuum) population in both static and dynamic systems, which has  
been
popular in the economics and genetics literatures. We construct a joint
agent-probability space, and randomized mutation, partial matching and
match-induced type-changing functions that satisfy appropriate  
independence
conditions. The proofs are achieved via nonstandard analysis. The  
proof for the
dynamic setting relies on a new Fubini-type theorem for an infinite  
product of
Loeb transition probabilities, based on which a continuum of  
independent Markov
chains is derived from random mutation, random partial matching and  
random type
changing.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703034

---------------------------------------------------------------

5364. EXISTENCE AND UNIQUENESS OF THE MEASURE OF MAXIMAL ENTROPY FOR  
THE  TEICHMUELLER FLOW ON THE MODULI SPACE OF ABELIAN DIFFERENTIALS

Alexander I. Bufetov and  Boris M. Gurevich

We show that the smooth measure is the unique measure of maximal  
entropy for
the Teichmueller flow on the moduli space of abelian differentials.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703020

---------------------------------------------------------------

5365. REDUCTIONS AND DEVIATIONS FOR STOCHASTIC PARTIAL DIFFERENTIAL  
EQUATIONS  UNDER FAST DYNAMICAL BOUNDARY CONDITIONS

Wei Wang and Jinqiao Duan

As a model for multiscale systems under random influences on physical
boundary, a stochastic partial differential equation under a fast random
dynamical boundary condition is investigated. An effective equation  
is derived
and justified by reducing the random dynamical boundary condition to  
a random
static boundary condition. The effective system is still a stochastic  
partial
differential equation, but is more tractable as it is only subject to  
the usual
static, instead of dynamical, boundary condition. Furthermore, the  
quantitative
comparison between the solution of the original stochastic system and  
the
effective solution is provided by proving normal deviations and large
deviations principles. Namely, the normal deviations are shown to be
asymptotically Gaussian, while the rate and speed of the large  
deviations are
also determined.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703042

---------------------------------------------------------------

5366. TOLL BASED MEASURES FOR DYNAMICAL GRAPHS

J\'{e}r\'{e}mie Bourdon (LINA) and  Damien Eveillard (LINA)

Biological networks are one of the most studied object in computational
biology. Several methods have been developed for studying qualitative
properties of biological networks. Last decade had seen the  
improvement of
molecular techniques that make quantitative analyses reachable. One  
of the
major biological modelling goals is therefore to deal with the  
quantitative
aspect of biological graphs. We propose a probabilistic model that  
suits with
this quantitative aspects. Our model combines graph with several  
dynamical
sources. It emphazises various asymptotic statistical properties that  
might be
useful for giving biological insights


  http://arXiv.org/abs/q-bio/0702060

---------------------------------------------------------------

5367. ON THE CHARACTERIZATION OF ISOTROPIC GAUSSIAN FIELDS ON  
HOMOGENEOUS  SPACES OF COMPACT GROUPS

P.Baldi and  D.Marinucci and  V.S.Varadarajan

Let T be a random field invariant under the action of a compact group  
G We
give conditions ensuring that independence of the random Fourier  
coefficients
is equivalent to Gaussianity. As a consequence, in general it is not  
possible
to simulate a non-Gaussian invariant random field through its Fourier  
expansion
using independent coefficients.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.1575

---------------------------------------------------------------

5368. A SYSTEMATIC SCAN FOR 7-COLOURINGS OF THE GRID

Markus Jalsenius and  Kasper Pedersen

We study the mixing time of a systematic scan Markov chain for  
sampling from
the uniform distribution on proper 7-colourings of a finite rectangular
sub-grid of the infinite square lattice, the grid. A systematic scan  
Markov
chain cycles through finite-size subsets of vertices in a  
deterministic order
and updates the colours assigned to the vertices of each subset. The  
systematic
scan Markov chain that we present cycles through subsets consisting  
of 2x2
sub-grids and updates the colours assigned to the vertices using a  
procedure
known as heat-bath. We give a computer-assisted proof that this  
systematic scan
Markov chain mixes in O(log n) scans, where n is the size of the  
rectangular
sub-grid. We make use of a heuristic to compute required couplings of
colourings of 2x2 sub-grids. This is the first time the mixing time of a
systematic scan Markov chain on the grid has been shown to mix for  
less than 8
colours. We also give partial results that underline the challenges  
of proving
rapid mixing of a systematic scan Markov chain for sampling 6- 
colourings of the
grid by considering 2x3 and 3x3 sub-grids.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.1625

---------------------------------------------------------------

5369. THE LIL FOR $U$-STATISTICS IN HILBERT SPACES

Rados{\l}aw Adamczak and  Rafa{\l} Lata{\l}a

We give necessary and sufficient conditions for the (bounded) law of the
iterated logarithm for $U$-statistics in Hilbert spaces. As a tool we  
also
develop moment and tail estimates for canonical Hilbert-space valued
$U$-statistics of arbitrary order, which are of independent interest.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.1643

---------------------------------------------------------------

5370. WHERE THE MONOTONE PATTERN (MOSTLY) RULES

Miklos Bona

We consider pattern containment and avoidance with a very tight  
definition
that was used first by Riordan more than 60 years ago. Using this  
definition,
we prove the monotone pattern is easier to avoid than almost any  
other pattern
of the same length.
   We also show that with this definition, almost all patterns of  
length $k$ are
avoided by the same number of permutations of length $n$. The  
corresponding
statements are not known to be true for more relaxed definitions of  
pattern
containment. This is the first time we know of that expectations are  
used to
compare numbers of permutations avoiding certain patterns.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.1489

---------------------------------------------------------------

5371. ASYMPTOTICS OF TRACY-WIDOM DISTRIBUTIONS AND THE TOTAL INTEGRAL  
OF A  PAINLEV\'E II FUNCTION

Jinho Baik and  Robert Buckingham and  and Jeffery DiFranco

The Tracy-Widom distribution functions involve integrals of a Painlev 
\'e II
function starting from positive infinity. In this paper, we express the
Tracy-Widom distribution functions in terms of integrals starting  
from minus
infinity. There are two consequences of these new representations.  
The first is
the evaluation of the total integral of the Hastings-McLeod solution  
of the
Painlev\'e II equation. The second is the evaluation of the constant  
term of
the asymptotic expansions of the Tracy-Widom distribution functions  
as the
distribution parameter approaches minus infinity. For the GUE Tracy- 
Widom
distribution function, this gives an alternative proof of the recent  
work of
Deift, Its, and Krasovsky. The constant terms for the GOE and GSE  
Tracy-Widom
distribution functions are new.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.3636

---------------------------------------------------------------

5372. INVARIANCE PRINCIPLE FOR ADDITIVE FUNCTIONALS OF MARKOV CHAINS

Yuri N.Kartashov and  Alexey M.Kulik

We consider a sequence of additive functionals {\phi_n}, set on a  
sequence of
Markov chains {X_n} that weakly converges to a Markov process X. We give
sufficient condition for such a sequence to converge in distribution,
formulated in terms of the characteristics of the additive  
functionals, and
related to the Dynkin's theorem on the convergence of W-functionals.  
As an
application of the main theorem, the general sufficient condition for
convergence of additive functionals in terms of transition  
probabilities of the
chains X_n is proved.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.0508

---------------------------------------------------------------

5373. DISSIPATIVE BACKWARD STOCHASTIC DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS WITH  
LOCALLY  LIPSCHITZ NONLINEARITY

Fulvia Confortola

In this paper we study a class of backward stochastic differential  
equations
(BSDEs) of the form dY(t)= -AY(t)dt -f_0(t,Y(t))dt -f_1(t,Y(t),Z(t))dt +
Z(t)dW(t) on the interval [0,T], with given final condition at time  
T, in an
infinite dimensional Hilbert space H. The unbounded operator A is  
sectorial and
dissipative and the nonlinearity f_0(t,y) is dissipative and defined  
for y only
taking values in a subspace of H. A typical example is provided by the
so-called polynomial nonlinearities. Applications are given to  
stochastic
partial differential equations and spin systems.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.0509

---------------------------------------------------------------

5374. OPTIMAL CONTROL OF STOCHASTIC DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS WITH  
DYNAMICAL  BOUNDARY CONDITIONS

S. Bonaccorsi and  F. Confortola and  E. Mastrogiacomo

In this paper we investigate the optimal control problem for a class of
stochastic Cauchy evolution problem with non standard boundary  
dynamic and
control. The model is composed by an infinite dimensional dynamical  
system
coupled with a finite dimensional dynamics, which describes the boundary
conditions of the internal system. In other terms, we are concerned  
with non
standard boundary conditions, as the value at the boundary is  
governed by a
different stochastic differential equation.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.0524

---------------------------------------------------------------

5375. YIELD CURVE SHAPES AND THE ASYMPTOTIC SHORT RATE DISTRIBUTION  
IN AFFINE  ONE-FACTOR MODELS

Martin Keller-Ressel and  Thomas Steiner

We consider a model for interest rates, where the short rate is given  
by a
time-homogenous, one-dimensional affine process in the sense of Duffie,
Filipovic and Schachermayer. We show that in such a model yield  
curves can only
be normal, inverse or humped (i.e. endowed with a single local  
maximum). Each
case can be characterized by simple conditions on the present short  
rate. We
give conditions under which the short rate process will converge to a  
limit
distribution and describe the limit distribution in terms of its  
cumulant
generating function. We apply our results to the Vasicek model, the  
CIR model,
a CIR model with added jumps and a model of Ornstein-Uhlenbeck type.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.0567

---------------------------------------------------------------

5376. CONTINUOUS INTERFACES WITH DISORDER: EVEN STRONG PINNING IS TOO  
WEAK IN  2 DIMENSIONS

C. Kuelske and  E. Orlandi

We consider statistical mechanics models of continuous height effective
interfaces in the presence of a delta-pinning at height zero. There is a
detailed mathematical understanding of the depinning transition in 2  
dimensions
without disorder. Then the variance of the interface height w.r.t.  
the Gibbs
measure stays bounded uniformly in the volume for any positive  
pinning force
and diverges like the logarithm of the pinning force when it tends to  
zero.
   How does the presence of a quenched disorder term in the  
Hamiltonian modify
this transition? We show that an arbitarily weak random field term is  
enough to
beat an arbitrarily strong delta-pinning in 2 dimensions and will cause
delocalization. The proof is based on a rigorous lower bound for the  
overlap
between local magnetizations and random fields in finite volume. In 2
dimensions it implies growth faster than the volume which is a  
contradiction to
localization. We also derive a simple complementary inequality which  
shows that
in higher dimensions the fraction of pinned sites converges to one  
when the
pinning force tends to infinity.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.0582

---------------------------------------------------------------

5377. A NEW APPROACH TO MUTUAL INFORMATION

F. Hiai and D. Petz

A new expression as a certain asymptotic limit via "discrete micro- 
states" of
permutations is provided to the mutual information of both continuous  
and
discrete random variables.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.0588

---------------------------------------------------------------

5378. A NEW APPROACH TO MUTUAL INFORMATION

F. Hiai and D. Petz

A new expression as a certain asymptotic limit via "discrete micro- 
states" of
permutations is provided to the mutual information of both continuous  
and
discrete random variables.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.0588

---------------------------------------------------------------

5379. A PROBABILISTIC REPRESENTATION OF CONSTANTS IN KESTEN'S RENEWAL  
THEOREM

Nathana\"{e}l Enriquez (PMA) and  Christophe Sabot (ICJ) and  Olivier  
Zindy  (PMA)

The aims of this paper are twofold. Firstly, we derive some  
probabilistic
representation for the constant which appears in the one-dimensional  
case of
Kesten's renewal theorem. Secondly, we estimate the tail of some  
related random
variable which plays an essential role in the description of the  
stable limit
law of one-dimensional transient sub-ballistic random walks in random
environment.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703648

---------------------------------------------------------------

5380. LIMIT LAWS FOR TRANSIENT RANDOM WALKS IN RANDOM ENVIRONMENT ON $ 
\Z$

Nathana\"{e}l Enriquez (PMA) and  Christophe Sabot (ICJ) and  Olivier  
Zindy  (PMA)

We consider transient random walks in random environment on $\z$ with  
zero
asymptotic speed. A classical result of Kesten, Kozlov and Spitzer  
says that
the hitting time of the level $n$ converges in law, after a proper
normalization, towards a positive stable law, but they do not obtain a
description of its parameter. A different proof of this result is  
presented,
that leads to a complete characterization of this stable law. The  
case of
Dirichlet environment turns out to be remarkably explicit.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703660

---------------------------------------------------------------

5381. COLLISION PROBABILITY FOR RANDOM TRAJECTORIES IN TWO DIMENSIONS

A. Gaudilliere

We give a lower bound for the non-collision probability up to a long  
time T
in a system of n independent random walks with fixed obstacles on the
two-dimensional lattice. By `collision' we mean collision between the  
random
walks as well as collision with the fixed obstacles. We give an  
analogous
result for Brownian particles on the plane. We also explain how this  
result can
be used to describe in terms of "quasi random walks" a diluted gas  
evolving
under Kawasaki dynamics or simple exclusion.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703671

---------------------------------------------------------------

5382. INFINITE PRODUCTS OF RANDOM MATRICES AND REPEATED INTERACTION  
DYNAMICS

Laurent Bruneau and  Alain Joye and  Marco Merkli

Let $\Psi_n$ be a product of $n$ independent, identically distributed  
random
matrices $M$, with the properties that $\Psi_n$ is bounded in $n$,  
and that $M$
has a deterministic (constant) invariant vector. Assuming that the  
probability
of $M$ having only the simple eigenvalue 1 on the unit circle does  
not vanish,
we show that $\Psi_n$ is the sum of a fluctuating and a decaying  
process. The
latter converges to zero almost surely, exponentially fast as $n\to 
\infty$. The
fluctuating part converges in Cesaro mean to a limit that is  
characterized
explicitly by the deterministic invariant vector and the spectral  
data of
${\mathbb E}[M]$ associated to 1. No additional assumptions are made  
on the
matrices $M$; they may have complex entries and not be invertible.
   We apply our general results to two classes of dynamical systems:
inhomogeneous Markov chains with random transition matrices (stochastic
matrices), and random repeated interaction quantum systems. In both  
cases, we
prove ergodic theorems for the dynamics, and we obtain the form of  
the limit
states.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703675

---------------------------------------------------------------

5383. KOLMOGOROV EQUATIONS FOR MEASURES

Luigi Manca

We consider a semigroup of operators in the Banach space $C_b(H)$ of
uniformly continuous and bounded functions on a separable Hilbert  
space $H$. In
particular, we deal with semigroups that are related to solution of  
stochastic
PDEs in $H$ and which are not, in general, strongly continuous. We  
prove an
existence and uniqueness result for a measure valued equation  
involving this
class of semigroups. Then we apply the result to a large class of  
second order
differential operators in $C_b(H)$.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703654

---------------------------------------------------------------

5384. APPROXIMATION FOR EXTINCTION PROBABILITY OF THE CONTACT PROCESS  
BASED ON  THE GR\"OBNER BASIS

Norio Konno

In this note we give a new method for getting a series of  
approximations for
the extinction probability of the one-dimensional contact process by  
using the
Gr\"obner basis.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/0704.0019.abs

---------------------------------------------------------------

5385. CLUSTERING IN A STOCHASTIC MODEL OF ONE-DIMENSIONAL GAS

Vladislav Vysotsky

We give a quantitative analysis of clustering in a stochastic model of
one-dimensional gas. At time zero the gas consists of $n$ identical  
particles,
which are randomly distributed on the real line and have zero initial  
speeds.
Particles begin to move under the forces of mutual attraction. At a  
collision
particles stick together forming a new particle called cluster whose  
mass and
speed are defined by the laws of conservation.
   We are interested in the asymptotic behaviour of $K_n(t)$ as $n  
\to \infty$,
where $K_n(t)$ denotes the number of clusters at time $t$ in the  
system with
$n$ initial particles. The main result is a functional limit theorem for
$K_n(t)$. Our proof is based on the discovered localization property  
of the
aggregation process. This property states that the behavior of each  
particle is
essentially defined only by the motion of neighbour particles.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/0704.0086.abs

---------------------------------------------------------------

5386. THE EXACT ASYMPTOTIC OF THE COLLISION TIME TAIL DISTRIBUTION  
FOR  INDEPENDENT BROWNIAN PARTICLES WITH DIFFERENT DRIFTS

Zbigniew Pucha{\l}a and Tomasz Rolski

In this note we consider the time of the collision $\tau$ for $n$  
independent
Brownian motions $X^1_t,...,X_t^n$ with drifts $a_1,...,a_n$, each  
starting
from $x=(x_1,...,x_n)$, where $x_1<...<x_n$. We show the exact  
asymptotics of
$P_x(\tau>t) = C h(x)t^{-\alpha}e^{-\gamma t}(1 + o(1))$ as $t\to 
\infty$ and
identify $C,h(x),\alpha,\gamma$ in terms of the drifts.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/0704.0215.abs

---------------------------------------------------------------

5387. PFAFFIANS, HAFNIANS AND PRODUCTS OF REAL LINEAR FUNCTIONALS

P\'eter E. Frenkel

We prove pfaffian and hafnian versions of Lieb's inequalities on  
determinants
and permanents of positive semi-definite matrices. We use the hafnian
inequality to improve the lower bound of R\'ev\'esz and Sarantopoulos  
on the
norm of a product of linear functionals on a real Euclidean space  
(this subject
is sometimes called the `real linear polarization constant' problem).


  http://arXiv.org/abs/0704.0028.abs

---------------------------------------------------------------

5388. PINNING AND WETTING TRANSITION FOR (1+1)-DIMENSIONAL FIELDS  
WITH  LAPLACIAN INTERACTION

Francesco Caravenna and Jean-Dominique Deuschel

We consider a random field \phi: {1, ..., N} -> R as a model for a  
linear
chain attracted to the defect line \phi = 0, i.e. the x-axis. The  
free law of
the field is specified by the density \exp(-\sum_i V(\Delta \phi_i))  
with
respect to the Lebesgue measure on R^N, where \Delta is the discrete  
Laplacian
and we allow for a very large class of potentials V(.). The  
interaction with
the defect line is introduced by giving the field a reward \epsilon  
\ge 0 each
time it touches the x-axis. We call this model the *pinning model*.  
We consider
a second model, the *wetting model*, in which, in addition to the  
pinning
reward, the field is also constrained to stay non-negative.
   We show that both models undergo a phase transition as the  
intensity \epsilon
of the pinning reward varies: both in the pinning (a=p) and in the  
wetting
(a=w) case, there is a critical value \epsilon_c^a such that when  
\epsilon >
\epsilon_c^a the field touches the defect line a positive fraction of  
times
(localization), while this does not happen for \epsilon < \epsilon_c^a
(delocalization). The two critical values are non-trivial and  
distinct: 0 <
\epsilon_c^p < \epsilon_c^w < \infty, and they are the only non- 
analyticity
points of the respective free energies. For the pinning model the  
transition is
of second order, hence the field at criticality is delocalized. On  
the other
hand, the transition in the wetting model is of first order and the  
field at
criticality is localized. The core of our approach is a Markov  
renewal theory
description of the field.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703434

---------------------------------------------------------------

5389. TRENDS TO EQUILIBRIUM IN TOTAL VARIATION DISTANCE

Patrick Cattiaux (CMAP and  LSProba) and  Arnaud Guillin (LATP)

This paper presents different approaches, based on functional  
inequalities,
to study the speed of convergence in total variation distance of ergodic
diffusion processes with initial law satisfying a given integrability
condition. To this end, we give a general upper bound "\`{a} la Pinsker"
enabling us to study our problem firstly via usual functional  
inequalities
(Poincar\'{e} inequality, weak Poincar\'{e},...) and truncation  
procedure, and
secondly through the introduction of new functional inequalities $ 
\Ipsi$. These
$\Ipsi$-inequalities are characterized through measure-capacity  
conditions and
$F$-Sobolev inequalities. A direct study of the decay of Hellinger  
distance is
also proposed. Finally we show how a dynamic approach based on  
reversing the
role of the semi-group and the invariant measure can lead to interesting
bounds.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703451

---------------------------------------------------------------

5390. CRITICAL BEHAVIOR AND THE LIMIT DISTRIBUTION FOR LONG-RANGE  
ORIENTED  PERCOLATION. I

Lung-Chi Chen and  Akira Sakai

We consider oriented percolation on Z^d times Z_+ whose bond-occupation
probability is pD(...), where p is the percolation parameter and D 
(...) is a
probability distribution on Z^d. Suppose that D(x) decays as |x|^{-d- 
\alpha}
for some \alpha>0. We prove that the two-point function obeys an  
infrared bound
which implies that various critical exponents take on their respective
mean-field values above the upper-critical dimension 2\min{\alpha,2}.  
We also
show that the Fourier transform of the normalized two-point function  
at time n,
with a proper spatial scaling, has a convergent subsequence to e to  
the power
-c|k|^{\min{\alpha,2}} for some c>0.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703455

---------------------------------------------------------------

5391. DOBRUSHIN CONDITIONS FOR SYSTEMATIC SCAN WITH BLOCK DYNAMICS

Kasper Pedersen

We study the mixing time of systematic scan Markov chains on finite spin
systems. It is known that, in a single site setting, the mixing time of
systematic scan can be bounded in terms of the influences sites have  
on each
other. We generalise this technique for bounding the mixing time of  
systematic
scan to block dynamics, a setting in which a (constant size) set of  
sites are
updated simultaneously. In particular we consider the parameter alpha,
corresponding to the maximum influence on any site, and show that if  
alpha<1
then the corresponding systematic scan Markov chain mixes rapidly. As
applications of this method we prove O(log n) mixing of systematic  
scan (for
any scan order) for heat-bath updates of edges for proper q- 
colourings of a
general graph with maximum vertex-degree Delta when q>=2Delta. We  
also apply
the method to improve the number of colours required in order to  
obtain mixing
in O(log n) scans for systematic scan for heat-bath updates on trees,  
using
some suitable block updates.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703461

---------------------------------------------------------------

5392. EFFECTIVE NON-ADDITIVE PAIR POTENTIAL FOR LOCK-AND-KEY INTERACTING

Julio Largo and  Piero Tartaglia and  Francesco Sciortino

Theoretical studies of self-assembly processes and condensed phases in
colloidal systems are often based on effective inter-particle  
potentials. Here
we show that developing an effective potential for particles  
interacting with a
limited number of ``lock-and-key'' selective bonds (due to the  
specificity of
bio-molecular interactions) requires -- beside the non-sphericity of the
potential -- a (many body) constraint that prevent multiple bonding  
on the same
site. We show the importance of retaining both valence and bond- 
selectivity by
developing, as a case study, a simple effective potential describing the
interaction between colloidal particles coated by four single-strand DNA
chains.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0703383

---------------------------------------------------------------

5393. DETERMINISTIC RANDOM WALKS ON THE TWO-DIMENSIONAL GRID

Benjamin Doerr and Tobias Friedrich

Jim Propp's rotor router model is a deterministic analogue of a  
random walk
on a graph. Instead of distributing chips randomly, each vertex  
serves its
neighbors in a fixed order. We analyze the difference between Propp  
machine and
random walk on the infinite two-dimensional grid. It is known that,  
apart from
a technicality, independent of the starting configuration, at each  
time, the
number of chips on each vertex in the Propp model deviates from the  
expected
number of chips in the random walk model by at most a constant. We  
show that
this constant is approximately 7.8, if all vertices serve their  
neighbors in
clockwise or counterclockwise order and 7.3 otherwise. This result in
particular shows that the order in which the neighbors are served  
makes a
difference. Our analysis also reveals a number of further unexpected  
properties
of the two-dimensional Propp machine.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703453

---------------------------------------------------------------

5394. NON-MONOTONE CONVERGENCE IN THE QUADRATIC WASSERSTEIN DISTANCE

Walter Schachermayer and  Uwe Schmock and  Josef Teichmann

We give an easy counter-example to Problem 7.20 from C. Villani's  
book on
mass transport: in general, the quadratic Wasserstein distance  
between $n$-fold
normalized convolutions of two given measures fails to decrease  
monotonically.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.0876

---------------------------------------------------------------

5395. METROPOLIS ALGORITHM AND EQUIENERGY SAMPLING FOR TWO MEAN FIELD  
SPIN  SYSTEMS

Bassetti Federico and  Leisen Fabrizio

In this paper we study the Metropolis algorithm in connection with two
mean--field spin systems, the so called mean--field Ising model and the
Blume--Emery--Griffiths model. In both this examples the naive choice of
proposal chain gives rise, for some parameters, to a slowly mixing  
Metropolis
chain, that is a chain whose spectral gap decreases exponentially  
fast (in the
dimension $N$ of the problem). Here we show how a slight variant in the
proposal chain can avoid this problem, keeping the mean computational  
cost
similar to the cost of the usual Metropolis. More precisely we prove  
that, with
a suitable variant in the proposal, the Metropolis chain has a  
spectral gap
which decreases polynomially in 1/N. Using some symmetry structure of  
the
energy, the method rests on allowing appropriate jumps within the  
energy level
of the starting state.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.0906

---------------------------------------------------------------

5396. RANDOM WALKS AND ORTHOGONAL POLYNOMIALS: SOME CHALLENGES

F. Alberto Grunbaum

The study of several naturally arising "nearest neighbours" random walks
benefits from the study of the associated orthogonal polynomials and  
their
orthogonality measure. I consider extensions of this approach to a  
larger class
of random walks. This raises a number of open problems.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703375

---------------------------------------------------------------

5397. INTERACTING AGENT FEEDBACK FINANCE MODEL

Biao Wu

We consider a financial market model which consists of a financial  
asset and
a large number of interacting agents classified into many types.  
Different
types of agents are heterogeneous in their price expectations. Each  
agent can
change its type based on the current empirical distribution of the  
types and
the equilibrium price, and the equilibrium price follows a recursive  
price
mechanism based on the previous price and the current empirical  
distribution of
the types. The interaction among the agents, and the interaction  
between the
agents and the equilibrium price, feedback, are modeled. We analyze the
asymptotic behavior of the empirical distribution of the types and the
equilibrium price when the number of agents goes to infinity. We give  
a case
study of a simple example, and also investigate the fixed points of  
empirical
distribution and equilibrium price of the example.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703827

---------------------------------------------------------------

5398. A LIMIT THEOREM FOR FINANCIAL MARKETS WITH INERT INVESTORS

Erhan Bayraktar and  Ulrich Horst and  Ronnie Sircar

We study the effect of investor inertia on stock price fluctuations  
with a
market microstructure model comprising many small investors who are  
inactive
most of the time. It turns out that semi-Markov processes are tailor  
made for
modelling inert investors. With a suitable scaling, we show that when  
the price
is driven by the market imbalance, the log price process is  
approximated by a
process with long range dependence and non-Gaussian returns  
distributions,
driven by a fractional Brownian motion. Consequently, investor  
inertia may lead
to arbitrage opportunities for sophisticated market participants. The
mathematical contributions are a functional central limit theorem for
stationary semi-Markov processes, and approximation results for  
stochastic
integrals of continuous semimartingales with respect to fractional  
Brownian
motion.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703831

---------------------------------------------------------------

5399. QUEUEING THEORETIC APPROACHES TO FINANCIAL PRICE FLUCTUATIONS

Erhan Bayraktar and  Ulrich Horst and  Ronnie Sircar

One approach to the analysis of stochastic fluctuations in market  
prices is
to model characteristics of investor behaviour and the complex  
interactions
between market participants, with the aim of extracting consequences  
in the
aggregate. This agent-based viewpoint in finance goes back at least  
to the work
of Garman (1976) and shares the philosophy of statistical mechanics  
in the
physical sciences. We discuss recent developments in market  
microstructure
models. They are capable, often through numerical simulations, to  
explain many
stylized facts like the emergence of herding behavior, volatility  
clustering
and fat tailed returns distributions. They are typically queueing- 
type models,
that is, models of order flows, in contrast to classical economic  
equilibrium
theories of utility-maximizing, rational, ``representative'' investors.
Mathematically, they are analyzed using tools of functional central  
limit
theorems, strong approximations and weak convergence. Our main  
examples focus
on investor inertia, a trait that is well-documented, among other  
behavioral
qualities, and modelled using semi-Markov switching processes. In  
particular,
we show how inertia may lead to the phenomenon of long-range  
dependence in
stock prices.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703832

---------------------------------------------------------------

5400. GEOMETRIC BROWNIAN MOTION WITH DELAY: MEAN SQUARE CHARACTERISATION

J. A. D. Appleby and  M. Riedle

A geometric Brownian motion with delay is the solution of a stochastic
differential equation where the drift and diffusion coefficient  
depend linearly
on the past of the solution, i.e. a linear stochastic functional  
differential
equation. In this work the asymptotic behavior in mean square of a  
geometric
Brownian motion with delay is completely characterized by a  
sufficient and
necessary condition in terms of the drift and diffusion coefficients.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703837

---------------------------------------------------------------

5401. ESTIMATING THE FRACTAL DIMENSION OF THE S&P 500 INDEX USING  
WAVELET  ANALYSIS

Erhan Bayraktar and  H. Vincent Poor and  Ronnie Sircar

S&P 500 index data sampled at one-minute intervals over the course of  
11.5
years (January 1989- May 2000) is analyzed, and in particular the Hurst
parameter over segments of stationarity (the time period over which  
the Hurst
parameter is almost constant) is estimated. An asymptotically  
unbiased and
efficient estimator using the log-scale spectrum is employed. The  
estimator is
asymptotically Gaussian and the variance of the estimate that is  
obtained from
a data segment of $N$ points is of order $\frac{1}{N}$. Wavelet  
analysis is
tailor made for the high frequency data set, since it has low  
computational
complexity due to the pyramidal algorithm for computing the detail
coefficients. This estimator is robust to additive non- 
stationarities, and here
it is shown to exhibit some degree of robustness to multiplicative
non-stationarities, such as seasonalities and volatility persistence,  
as well.
This analysis shows that the market became more efficient in the period
1997-2000.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703834

---------------------------------------------------------------

5402. CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN LIFETIME MINIMUM WEALTH AND UTILITY OF   
CONSUMPTION

Erhan Bayraktar and  Virginia R. Young

We establish when the two problems of minimizing a function of lifetime
minimum wealth and of maximizing utility of lifetime consumption  
result in the
same optimal investment strategy on a given open interval $O$ in  
wealth space.
To answer this question, we equate the two investment strategies and  
show that
if the individual consumes at the same rate in both problems -- the  
consumption
rate is a control in the problem of maximizing utility -- then the  
investment
strategies are equal only when the consumption function is linear in  
wealth on
$O$, a rather surprising result. It, then, follows that the  
corresponding
investment strategy is also linear in wealth and the implied utility  
function
exhibits hyperbolic absolute risk aversion.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703820

---------------------------------------------------------------

5403. OPTIMIZING VENTURE CAPITAL INVESTMENTS IN A JUMP DIFFUSION MODEL

Erhan Bayraktar and  Masahiko Egami

We study a practical optimization problems for venture capital  
investments
and/or Research and Development (R&D) investments. The first problem  
is that,
given the amount of the initial investment and the reward function at  
the
initial public offering (IPO) market, the venture capitalist wants to  
maximize
overall discounted cash flows after subtracting subsequent (if needed)
investments. We describe this problem as a mixture of singular  
stochastic
control and optimal stopping problems and give an explicit solution.  
The former
corresponds to finding an optimal subsequent investment policy for  
the purpose
that the value of the investee company stays away from zero. The latter
corresponds to finding an optimal stopping rule in order to maximize the
harvest of their investments. The second kind problem is concerned about
optimal dividend policy. Rather than selling the holding stock, the  
investor
may extract dividends when it is appropriate. We will find a quasi- 
explicit
optimal solution to this problem and prove the existence and  
uniqueness of the
solution and the optimality of the proposed strategy.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703823

---------------------------------------------------------------

5404. MINIMIZING THE LIFETIME SHORTFALL OR SHORTFALL AT DEATH

Erhan Bayraktar

We find the optimal investment strategy for an individual who seeks to
minimize one of four objectives: (1) the probability that his wealth  
reaches a
specified ruin level {\it before} death, (2) the probability that his  
wealth
reaches that level {\it at} death, (3) the expectation of how low his  
wealth
drops below a specified level {\it before} death, and (4) the  
expectation of
how low his wealth drops below a specified level {\it at} death.  
Young (2004)
showed that under criterion (1), the optimal investment strategy is a  
heavily
leveraged position in the risky asset for low wealth.
   In this paper, we introduce the other three criteria in order to  
reduce the
leveraging observed by Young (2004). We discovered that surprisingly the
optimal investment strategy for criterion (3) is {\it identical} to  
the one for
(1) and that the strategies for (2) and (4) are {\it more} leveraged  
than the
one for (1) at low wealth. Because these criteria do not reduce  
leveraging, we
completely remove it by considering problems (1) and (3) under the  
restriction
that the individual cannot borrow to invest in the risky asset.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703824

---------------------------------------------------------------

5405. OPTIMAL DIVIDEND PAYMENTS UNDER FIXED COST AND IMPLEMENTATION  
DELAYS FOR  VARIOUS MODELS

Erhan Bayraktar and  Masahiko Egami

In this paper we solve the dividend optimization problem for a  
corporation or
a financial institution when the managers of the corporation are facing
(regulatory) implementation delays. We consider several cash  
reservoir models
for the firm including two mean-reverting processes, Ornstein- 
Uhlenbeck and
square-root processes. We provide our solution via a new  
characterization of
the value function for one-dimensional diffusions and provide easily
implementable algorithms to find the optimal control and the value  
function.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703825

---------------------------------------------------------------

5406. OPTIMAL TIME TO CHANGE PREMIUMS

Erhan Bayraktar and  H. Vincent Poor

The claim arrival process to an insurance company is modeled by a  
compound
Poisson process whose intensity and/or jump size distribution changes  
at an
unobservable time with a known distribution. It is in the insurance  
company's
interest to detect the change time as soon as possible in order to re- 
evaluate
a new fair value for premiums to keep its profit level the same. This is
equivalent to a problem in which the intensity and the jump size  
change at the
same time but the intensity changes to a random variable with a know
distribution. This problem becomes an optimal stopping problem for a  
Markovian
sufficient statistic. Here, a special case of this problem is solved,  
in which
the rate of the arrivals moves up to one of two possible values, and the
Markovian sufficient statistic is two-dimensional.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703828

---------------------------------------------------------------

5407. THE EFFECTS OF IMPLEMENTATION DELAY ON DECISION-MAKING UNDER  
UNCERTAINTY

Erhan Bayraktar and  Masahiko Egami

In this paper, we accomplish two objectives: First, we provide a new
mathematical characterization of the value function for impulse control
problems with implementation delay and present a direct solution  
method that
differs from its counterparts that use quasi-variational  
inequalities. Our
method is direct, in the sense that we do not have to guess the form  
of the
solution and we do not have to prove that the conjectured solution  
satisfies
conditions of a verification lemma. Second, by employing this direct  
solution
method, we solve two examples that involve decision delays: an  
exchange rate
intervention problem and a problem of labor force optimization.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703833

---------------------------------------------------------------

5408. MINIMIZING THE PROBABILITY OF LIFETIME RUIN UNDER BORROWING  
CONSTRAINTS

Erhan Bayraktar and  Virginia R. Young

We determine the optimal investment strategy of an individual who  
targets a
given rate of consumption and who seeks to minimize the probability  
of going
bankrupt before she dies, also known as {\it lifetime ruin}. We  
impose two
types of borrowing constraints: First, we do not allow the individual  
to borrow
money to invest in the risky asset nor to sell the risky asset short.  
However,
the latter is not a real restriction because in the unconstrained  
case, the
individual does not sell the risky asset short. Second, we allow the  
individual
to borrow money but only at a rate that is higher than the rate  
earned on the
riskless asset.
   We consider two forms of the consumption function: (1) The individual
consumes at a constant (real) dollar rate, and (2) the individual  
consumes a
constant proportion of her wealth. The first is arguably more  
realistic, but
the second is closely connected with Merton's model of optimal  
consumption and
investment under power utility. We demonstrate that connection in  
this paper,
as well as include a numerical example to illustrate our results.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703850

---------------------------------------------------------------

5409. ON DISCRETE TIME HEDGING IN D-DIMENSIONAL OPTION PRICING MODELS

Mika Hujo

We study the approximation of certain stochastic integrals with  
respect to a
d-dimensional diffusion by corresponding stochastic integrals with  
piece-wise
constant integrands. In finance this corresponds to replacing a  
continuously
adjusted portfolio by discretely adjusted one. The approximation  
error is
measured with respect to $L^2$ and it is shown that under certain  
assumptions
the approximation rate is $n^{-1/2}$ when one optimizes over  
deterministic but
not necessarily equidistant time-nets.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703481

---------------------------------------------------------------

5410. SOLVABILITY OF BACKWARD STOCHASTIC DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS WITH  
QUADRATIC  GROWTH

Revaz Tevzadze

We prove the existence of the unique solution of a general Backward
Stochastic Differential Equation with quadratic growth driven by  
martingales.
Some kind of comparison theorem is also proved.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703484

---------------------------------------------------------------

5411. ON SOME SPECIAL DIRECTED LAST-PASSAGE PERCOLATION MODELS

Kurt Johansson

We investigate extended processes given by last-passage times in  
directed
models defined using exponential variables with decaying mean. In  
certain cases
we find the universal Airy process, but other cases lead to non- 
universal and
trivial extended processes.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703492

---------------------------------------------------------------

5412. BELIEF PROPAGATION AND BETHE APPROXIMATION FOR TRAFFIC PREDICTION

Cyril Furtlehner (INRIA Futurs) and  Jean-Marc Lasgouttes (INRIA   
Rocquencourt), Arnaud De La Fortelle (INRIA Rocquencourt)

We define and study an inference algorithm based on "belief  
propagation" (BP)
and the Bethe approximation. The idea is to encode into a graph an a  
priori
information composed of correlations or marginal probabilities of  
variables,
and to use a message passing procedure to estimate the actual state  
from some
extra real-time information. This method is originally designed for  
traffic
prediction and is particularly suitable in settings where the only  
information
available is floating car data. We propose a discretized traffic  
description,
based on the Ising model of statistical physics, in order to both  
reconstruct
and predict the traffic in real time. General properties of BP are  
addressed in
this context. In particular, a detailed study of stability is  
proposed with
respect to the a priori data and the graph topology. The behavior of the
algorithm is illustrated by numerical studies on a simple traffic toy  
model.
How this approach can be generalized to encode superposition of many  
traffic
patterns is discussed.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/physics/0703159

---------------------------------------------------------------

5413. RECONSTRUCTION FOR MODELS ON RANDOM GRAPHS

Antoine Gerschenfeld and Andrea Montanari

The reconstruction problem requires to estimate a random variable  
given `far
away' observations. Several theoretical results (and simple  
algorithms) are
available when the underlying probability distribution is Markov with  
respect
to a tree. In this paper we estabilish several exact thresholds for  
loopy
graphs. More precisely we consider models on random graphs that converge
locally to trees. We establish the reconstruction thresholds for the  
Ising
model both with attractive and random interactions (respectively,
`ferromagnetic' and `spin glass'). Remarkably, in the first case the  
result
does not coincide with the corresponding tree threshold.
   Among the other tools, we develop a sufficient condition for the  
tree and
graph reconstruction problem to coincide. We apply such condition to
antiferromagnetic colorings of random graphs.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.3293

---------------------------------------------------------------

5414. ON THE MARGINAL DISTRIBUTIONS OF STATIONARY AR(1) SEQUENCES

S Satheesh and E Sandhya

In this note we correct an omission in our paper (Satheesh and  
Sandhya, 2005)
in defining semi-selfdecomposable laws and also show with examples  
that the
marginal distributions of a stationary AR(1) process need not even be
infinitely divisible.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.3304

---------------------------------------------------------------

5415. A CLASS OF PAIRWISE-INDEPENDENT JOININGS

Elise Janvresse (LMRS) and  Thierry De La Rue (LMRS)

We introduce a special class of pairwise-independent self-joinings for a
stationary process: Those for which one coordinate is a continuous  
function of
the two others. We investigate which properties on the process the  
existence of
such a joining entails. In particular, we prove that if the process is
aperiodic, then it has positive entropy. Our other results suggest  
that such
pairwise independent, non-independent self-joinings exist only in  
very specific
situations: Essentially when the process is a subshift of finite type
topologically conjugate to a full-shift. This provides an argument in  
favor of
the conjecture that 2-fold mixing implies 3-fold-mixing.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.3358

---------------------------------------------------------------

5416. ANALYTIC CROSSING PROBABILITIES FOR CERTAIN BARRIERS BY  
BROWNIAN MOTION

Nabil Kahale

We calculate crossing probabilities and one-sided last exit time  
densities
for a class of moving barriers on an interval [0,T] via Schwartz  
distributions.
We derive crossing probabilities and first hitting time densities for  
another
class of barriers on [0,T] by proving a Schwartz distribution version  
of the
method of images. Analytic expressions for crossing probabilities and  
related
densities are given for new explicit and semi-explicit barriers.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.2826

---------------------------------------------------------------

5417. GAUSSIAN CONDITIONAL INDEPENDENCE RELATIONS HAVE NO FINITE  
COMPLETE  CHARACTERIZATION

Seth Sullivant

We show that there can be no finite list of conditional independence
relations which can be used to deduce all conditional independence  
implications
among Gaussian random variables. To do this, we construct, for each  
$n> 3$ a
family of $n$ conditional independence statements on $n$ random  
variables which
together imply that $X_1 \ind X_2$, and such that no subset have this  
same
implication. The proof relies on binomial primary decomposition.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.2847

---------------------------------------------------------------

5418. CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM RANDOMNESS AND THE FINANCIAL MARKET

Andrei Khrennikov

We analyze complexity of financial (and general economic) processes by
comparing classical and quantum-like models for randomness. Our analysis
implies that it might be that a quantum-like probabilistic  
description is more
natural for financial market than the classical one. A part of our  
analysis is
devoted to study the possibility of application of the quantum  
probabilistic
model to agents of financial market. We show that, although the  
direct quantum
(physical) reduction (based on using the scales of quantum mechanics) is
meaningless, one may apply so called quantum-like models. In our  
approach
quantum-like probabilistic behaviour is a consequence of contextualy of
statistical data in finances (and economics in general). However, our
hypothesis on "quantumness" of financial data should be tested  
experimentally
(as opposed to the conventional description based on the noncontextual
classical probabilistic approach). We present a new statistical test  
based on a
generalization of the well known in quantum physics Bell's inequality.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.2865

---------------------------------------------------------------

5419. COMPARISON OF SERVICE DISCIPLINES IN REAL-TIME QUEUEING

Pascal Moyal

In this short paper we present a comparison of the service  
disciplines in
real-time queueing systems (the customers have a deadline before  
which they
should enter the service booth). We state that the more a service  
discipline
gives priority to customers having an early deadline, the least the  
average
stationary lateness is. We show this result by comparing adequate random
vectors with the Schur-Convex majorization ordering.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.2885

---------------------------------------------------------------

5420. THE SPECTRAL LAWS OF HERMITIAN BLOCK-MATRICES WITH LARGE RANDOM  
BLOCKS

Tamer Oraby

We are going to study the limiting spectral measure of fixed dimensional
Hermitian block-matrices with large dimensional Wigner blocks. We are  
going
also to identify the limiting spectral measure when the Hermitian
block-structure is Circulant. Using the limiting spectral measure of a
Hermitian Circulant block-matrix we will show that the spectral  
measure of a
Wigner matrix with $k-$weakly dependent entries need not to be the  
semicircle
law in the limit.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.2904

---------------------------------------------------------------

5421. LADDER SANDPILES

Antal A. J\'arai and Russell Lyons

We study Abelian sandpiles on graphs of the form $G \times I$, where  
$G$ is
an arbitrary finite connected graph, and $I \subset \Z$ is a finite  
interval.
We show that for any fixed $G$ with at least two vertices, the  
stationary
measures $\mu_I = \mu_{G \times I}$ have two extremal weak limit  
points as $I
\uparrow \Z$. The extremal limits are the only ergodic measures of  
maximum
entropy on the set of infinite recurrent configurations. We show that  
under any
of the limiting measures, one can add finitely many grains in such a  
way that
almost surely all sites topple infinitely often. We also show that  
the extremal
limiting measures admit a Markovian coding.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.2913

---------------------------------------------------------------

5422. UNIQUENESS THRESHOLDS ON TREES VERSUS GRAPHS

Allan Sly

Counter to the general notion that the regular tree is the worst case  
for
decay of correlation between sets and nodes we produce an example of a
multi-spin interacting system which has uniqueness on the d-regular  
tree but
does not have uniqueness on some infinite d-regular graphs.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.2916

---------------------------------------------------------------

5423. HYDRODYNAMIC LIMIT OF EXCLUSION PROCESSES AMONG RANDOM  
CONDUCTANCES ON  THE SUPERCRITICAL PERCOLATION CLUSTER

A. Faggionato

We prove homogenization results for random walks among random  
conductances on
the infinite cluster of bond percolation on Z^d, d>1, with supercritical
parameter p in (p_c, 1]. Conductances are assumed to be bounded  
i.i.d. random
variables satisfying an ellipticity condition. As a byproduct,  
applying the
general criterium of \cite{F} leading to the hydrodynamic limit of  
exclusion
processes with bond-dependent transition rates, we prove for almost all
realizations of the environment the hydrodynamic limit of simple  
exclusion
processes among bounded, i.i.d. and elliptic conductances on the  
infinite
cluster of supercritical bond percolation. The hydrodynamic equation  
is given
by an heat equation whose diffusion coefficient does not depend on the
environment.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.3020

---------------------------------------------------------------

5424. THE EVOLUTION OF LARGE COMPONENTS IN RANDOM INDUCED SUBGRAPHS  
OF N-CUBES

Christian M. Reidys

In this paper we study random induced subgraphs of binary $n$-cubes,  
$Q_2^n$.
This random graph is obtained by selecting each vertex with independent
probability $\lambda_n$. Using a novel construction of sub components  
we study
the evolution of the largest component for $\lambda_n=\frac{1+\chi_n} 
{n}$,
where $\chi_n$ tends to zero. Our main result is that for $\chi_n= 
\epsilon
n^{\frac{a-1}{2}}$, $\epsilon>0$ and arbitrary $1\ge a>0$ there  
exists a.s. an
unique largest component of size $\kappa_a n^{a-2} 2^n$, where $ 
\kappa_a>0$. In
particular in case of $a=1$, i.e. $\lambda_n=\frac{1+\epsilon}{n}$, this
implies the existence of an unique giant component. We can prove our  
main
theorem without using Harper's isoperimetric inequality and all  
proofs hold
verbatim for generalized $n$-cubes i.e. cubes over an arbitrary finite
alphabet.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.2868

---------------------------------------------------------------

5425. STOCHASTIC HEAT EQUATION DRIVEN BY FRACTIONAL NOISE AND LOCAL TIME

Yaozhong Hu and  David Nualart

The aim of this paper is to study the $d$-dimensional stochastic heat
equation with a multiplicative Gaussian noise which is white in space  
and it
has the covariance of a fractional Brownian motion with Hurst  
parameter $% H\in
(0,1)$ in time. Two types of equations are considered. First we  
consider the
equation in the It\^{o}-Skorohod sense, and later in the Stratonovich  
sense. An
explicit chaos development for the solution is obtained. On the other  
hand, the
moments of the solution are expressed in terms of the exponential  
moments of
some weighted intersection local time of the Brownian motion.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.1824

---------------------------------------------------------------

5426. INFORMATION-BASED ASSET PRICING

Dorje C. Brody and  Lane P. Hughston and  Andrea Macrina

A new framework for asset price dynamics is introduced in which the  
concept
of noisy information about future cash flows is used to derive the price
processes. In this framework an asset is defined by its cash-flow  
structure.
Each cash flow is modelled by a random variable that can be expressed  
as a
function of a collection of independent random variables called  
market factors.
With each such "X-factor" we associate a market information process,  
the values
of which are accessible to market agents. Each information process is  
a sum of
two terms; one contains true information about the value of the  
market factor;
the other represents "noise". The noise term is modelled by an  
independent
Brownian bridge. The market filtration is assumed to be that  
generated by the
aggregate of the independent information processes. The price of an  
asset is
given by the expectation of the discounted cash flows in the risk- 
neutral
measure, conditional on the information provided by the market  
filtration. When
the cash flows are the dividend payments associated with equities, an  
explicit
model is obtained for the share-price, and the prices of options on
dividend-paying assets are derived. Remarkably, the resulting formula  
for the
price of a European call option is of the Black-Scholes-Merton type. The
information-based framework also generates a natural explanation for  
the origin
of stochastic volatility.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.1976

---------------------------------------------------------------

5427. ON A NEW VERSION OF THE ITO'S FORMULA FOR THE STOCHASTIC HEAT  
EQUATION

Alberto Lanconelli

We derive an It\^o's-type formula for the one dimensional stochastic  
heat
equation driven by a space-time white noise. The proof is based on  
elementary
properties of the $\mathcal{S}$-transform and on the explicit  
representation of
the solution process. We also discuss the relationship with other  
versions of
this It\^o's-type formula existing in literature.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.2018

---------------------------------------------------------------

5428. PURE INDUCTIVE LIMIT STATE AND KOLMOGOROV'S PROPERTY

Anilesh Mohari

Let $(\clb,\lambda_t,\psi)$ be a $C^*$-dynamical system where $ 
(\lambda_t: t
\in \IT_+)$ be a semigroup of injective endomorphism and $\psi$ be an
$(\lambda_t)$ invariant state on the $C^*$ subalgebra $\clb$ and $\IT_ 
+$ is
either non-negative integers or real numbers. The central aim of this
exposition is to find a useful criteria for the inductive limit state  
$\clb
\raro^{\lambda_t} \clb$ canonically associated with $\psi$ to be  
pure. We
achieve this by exploring the minimal weak forward and backward Markov
processes associated with the Markov semigroup on the corner von-Neumann
algebra of the support projection of the state $\psi$ to prove that
Kolmogorov's property [Mo2] of the Markov semigroup is a sufficient  
condition
for the inductive state to be pure. As an application of this  
criteria we find
a sufficient condition for a translation invariant factor state on a one
dimensional quantum spin chain to be pure. This criteria in a sense  
complements
criteria obtained in [BJKW,Mo2] as we could go beyond lattice  
symmetric states.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.1987

---------------------------------------------------------------

5429. JONES INDEX OF A QUANTUM DYNAMICAL SEMIGROUP

Anilesh Mohari

In this paper we consider a semigroup of completely positive maps
$\tau=(\tau_t,t \ge 0)$ with a faithful normal invariant state $\phi$  
on a
type-$II_1$ factor $\cla_0$ and propose an index theory. We :achieve  
this via a
more general Kolmogorov's type of construction for stationary Markov  
processes
which naturally associate a nested isomorphic von-Neumann algebras. In
particular this construction generalizes well known Jones construction
associated with a sub-factor of type-II$_1$ factor.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.1989

---------------------------------------------------------------

5430. FRUSTRATION SOLITAIRE

Peter G. Doyle and  Charles M. Grinstead and  J. Laurie Snell

In this expository article, we discuss the rank-derangement problem,  
which
asks for the number of permutations of a deck of cards such that each  
card is
replaced by a card of a different rank. This combinatorial problem  
arises in
computing the probability of winning the game of `frustration  
solitaire'. We
discuss and exhibit the solution to a related problem, Montmort's  
`Probleme du
Treize', which dates back to circa 1708.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703900

---------------------------------------------------------------

5431. CONNECTIVITY AND EQUILIBRIUM IN RANDOM GAMES

Constantinos Daskalakis and Alexandros G. Dimakis and Elchanan Mossel

We study how the structure of the interaction graph affects the Nash
equilibria of the resulting game. In particular, for a fixed  
interaction graph,
we are interested if there exist Nash equilibria which arise when random
utility tables are assigned to the players.
   We provide conditions for the structure of the graph under which  
equilibria
are likely to exist and complementary conditions which make the  
existence of
equilibria highly unlikely. Our results have immediate implications  
for many
deterministic graphs and generalize known results for games on the  
complete
graph. In particular, our results imply that the probability that  
bounded
degree graphs have Nash equilibria is exponentially small in the size  
of the
graph and yield a simple algorithm that finds small non-existence  
certificates
for a large family of graphs.
   In order to obtained a refined characterization of the degree of  
connectivity
associated with the existence of equilibria, we study the model in  
the random
graph setting. In particular, we look at the case where the  
interaction graph
is drawn from the Erd\H{o}s-R\'enyi, $G(n,p)$, where each edge is  
present
independently with probability $p$. For this model we establish a  
{\em double
phase transition} for the existence of pure Nash equilibria as a  
function of
the average degree $p n$ consistent with the non-monotone behavior of  
the
model. We show that when the average degree satisfies $n p > (2 +  
\Omega(1))
\log n$, the number of pure Nash equilibria follows a Poisson  
distribution with
parameter 1. When $1/n << n p < (0.5 -\Omega(1)) \log n$ pure Nash  
equilibria
fail to exist with high probability. Finally, when $n p << 1/n$ a  
pure Nash
equilibrium exists with high probability.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703902

---------------------------------------------------------------

5432. ON LERCH'S TRANSCENDENT AND THE GAUSSIAN RANDOM WALK

A. J. E. M. Janssen and  J. S. H. van Leeuwaarden

Let $X_1,X_2,...$ be independent variables, each having a normal  
distribution
with negative mean $-\beta<0$ and variance 1. We consider the partial  
sums
$S_n=X_1+...+X_n$, with $S_0=0$, and refer to the process $\{S_n:n 
\geq0\}$ as
the Gaussian random walk. We present explicit expressions for the  
mean and
variance of the maximum $M=\max\{S_n:n\geq0\}.$ These expressions are  
in terms
of Taylor series about $\beta=0$ with coefficients that involve the  
Riemann
zeta function. Our results extend Kingman's first-order approximation  
[Proc.
Symp. on Congestion Theory (1965) 137--169] of the mean for $\beta 
\downarrow0$.
We build upon the work of Chang and Peres [Ann. Probab. 25 (1997)  
787--802],
and use Bateman's formulas on Lerch's transcendent and Euler--Maclaurin
summation as key ingredients.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703908

---------------------------------------------------------------

5433. EFFICIENT IMPORTANCE SAMPLING FOR MONTE CARLO EVALUATION OF  
EXCEEDANCE  PROBABILITIES

Hock Peng Chan and  Tze Leung Lai

Large deviation theory has provided important clues for the choice of
importance sampling measures for Monte Carlo evaluation of exceedance
probabilities. However, Glasserman and Wang [Ann. Appl. Probab. 7 (1997)
731--746] have given examples in which importance sampling measures  
that are
consistent with large deviations can perform much worse than direct  
Monte
Carlo. We address this problem by using certain mixtures of  
exponentially
twisted measures for importance sampling. Their asymptotic optimality is
established by using a new class of likelihood ratio martingales and  
renewal
theory.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703910

---------------------------------------------------------------

5434. LOCALIZATION TRANSITION IN DISORDERED PINNING MODELS. EFFECT  
OF  RANDOMNESS ON THE CRITICAL PROPERTIES

F. Toninelli (Laboratoire de Physique and  ENS Lyon and  CNRS UMR 5672)

These notes are devoted to the statistical mechanics of directed  
polymers
interacting with one-dimensional spatial defects. We are interested in
particular in the situation where frozen disorder is present. These  
polymer
models undergo a localization/delocalization transition. There is a  
large
(bio)-physics literature on the subject since these systems describe,  
for
instance, the statistics of thermally created loops in DNA double  
strands and
the interaction between (1+1)-dimensional interfaces and disordered  
walls. In
these cases the transition corresponds, respectively, to the DNA  
denaturation
transition and to the wetting transition. More abstractly, one may  
see these
models as random and inhomogeneous perturbations of renewal processes.
   The last few years have witnessed a great progress in the  
mathematical
understanding of the equilibrium properties of these systems. In  
particular,
many rigorous results about the location of the critical point, about  
critical
exponents and path properties of the polymer in the two thermodynamic  
phases
(localized and delocalized) are now available.
   Here, we will focus on some aspects of this topic - in particular,  
on the
non-perturbative effects of disorder. The mathematical tools employed  
range
from renewal theory to large deviations and, interestingly, show tight
connections with techniques developed recently in the mathematical  
study of
mean field spin glasses.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703912

---------------------------------------------------------------

5435. RANDOMLY GROWING BRAID ON THREE STRANDS AND THE MANTA RAY

Jean Mairesse and  Fr\'{e}d\'{e}ric Math\'{e}us

Consider the braid group $B_3=< a,b| aba=bab>$ and the nearest neighbor
random walk defined by a probability $\nu$ with support
$\{a,a^{-1},b,b^{-1}\}$. The rate of escape of the walk is explicitly  
expressed
in function of the unique solution of a set of eight polynomial  
equations of
degree three over eight indeterminates. We also explicitly describe the
harmonic measure of the induced random walk on $B_3$ quotiented by  
its center.
The method and results apply, mutatis mutandis, to nearest neighbor  
random
walks on dihedral Artin groups.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703913

---------------------------------------------------------------

5436. BETTI NUMBERS OF RANDOM MANIFOLDS

Michael Farber and Thomas Kappeler

We study mathematical expectations of Betti numbers of configuration  
spaces
of planar linkages, viewing the lengths of the bars of the linkage as  
random
variables. Our main result gives an explicit asymptotic formulae for  
these
mathematical expectations for two distinct probability measures  
describing the
statistics of the length vectors when the number of links tends to  
infinity. In
the proof we use a combination of geometric and analytic tools. The  
average
Betti numbers are expressed in terms of volumes of intersections of a  
simplex
with certain half-spaces.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703929

---------------------------------------------------------------

5437. CHUNG'S LAW FOR HOMOGENEOUS BROWNIAN FUNCTIONALS

Aim\'e Lachal (ICJ) and  Thomas Simon (DP)

Consider the first exit time $T_{a,b}$ from a finite interval $[-a,b] 
$ for an
homogeneous fluctuating functional $X$ of a linear Brownian motion.  
We show the
existence of a finite positive constant $\k$ such that
$$\lim_{t\to\infty}t^{-1}\log \p[ T_{ab} > t] = -\k.$$ Following Chung's
original approach, we deduce a "liminf" law of the iterated logarithm  
for the
two-sided supremum of $X$. This extends and gives a new point of view  
on a
result of Khoshnevisan and Shi.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.3519

---------------------------------------------------------------

5438. RAPID MIXING OF GIBBS SAMPLING ON GRAPHS THAT ARE SPARSE ON  
AVERAGE

Elchanan Mossel and Allan Sly

In this work we show that for every $d < \infty$ and the Ising model  
defined
on $G(n,d/n)$, there exists a $\beta_d > 0$, such that for all $\beta <
\beta_d$ with probability going to 1 as $n \to \infty$, the mixing  
time of the
dynamics on $G(n,d/n)$ is polynomial in $n$. Our results are the first
polynomial time mixing results proven for a natural model on $G(n,d/n) 
$ for $d
 > 1$ where the parameters of the model do not depend on $n$. They  
also provide
a rare example where one can prove a polynomial time mixing of Gibbs  
sampler in
a situation where the actual mixing time is slower than $n \polylog(n) 
$. Our
proof exploits in novel ways the local treelike structure of Erd\H{o} 
s-R\'enyi
random graphs, comparison and block dynamics arguments and a recent  
result of
Weitz.
   Our results extend to much more general families of graphs which  
are sparse
in some average sense and to much more general interactions. In  
particular,
they apply to any graph for which every vertex $v$ of the graph has a
neighborhood $N(v)$ of radius $O(\log n)$ in which the induced sub- 
graph is a
tree union at most $O(\log n)$ edges and where for each simple path  
in $N(v)$
the sum of the vertex degrees along the path is $O(\log n)$.  
Moreover, our
result apply also in the case of arbitrary external fields and  
provide the
first FPRAS for sampling the Ising distribution in this case. We finally
present a non Markov Chain algorithm for sampling the distribution  
which is
effective for a wider range of parameters. In particular, for $G(n,d/ 
n)$ it
applies for all external fields and $\beta < \beta_d$, where $d \tanh 
(\beta_d)
= 1$ is the critical point for decay of correlation for the Ising  
model on
$G(n,d/n)$.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.3603

---------------------------------------------------------------

5439. THE UPPER ENVELOPE OF POSITIVE SELF-SIMILAR MARKOV PROCESSES

Juan Carlos Pardo Millan

We establish integral tests and laws of the iterated logarithm at 0  
and at
$+\infty$, for the upper envelope of positive self-similar Markov  
processes.
Our arguments are based on the Lamperti representation, time reversal  
arguments
and on the study of the upper envelope of their future infimum due to  
Pardo
\cite{Pa}. These results extend integral test and laws of the iterated
logarithm for Bessel processes due to Dvoretsky and Erd\"os \cite{de}  
and
stable L\'evy processes conditioned to stay positive with no positive  
jumps due
to Bertoin \cite{be1}.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703071

---------------------------------------------------------------

5440. EXISTENCE AND SPATIAL LIMIT THEOREMS FOR LATTICE AND CONTINUUM  
PARTICLE  SYSTEMS

Mathew D. Penrose

We give a general existence result for interacting particle systems with
local interactions and bounded jump rates but noncompact state space  
at each
site. We allow for jump events at a site that affect the state of its
neighbours. We give a law of large numbers and functional central  
limit theorem
for additive set functions taken over an increasing family of  
subcubes of
$Z^d$. We discuss application to marked spatial point processes with  
births,
deaths and jumps of particles, in particular examples such as  
continuum and
lattice ballistic deposition and a sequential model for random loose  
sphere
packing.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703072

---------------------------------------------------------------

5441. BID-ASK DYNAMIC PRICING IN FINANCIAL MARKETS WITH TRANSACTION  
COSTS AND  LIQUIDITY RISK

Jocelyne Bion-Nadal

We introduce, in continuous time, an axiomatic approach to assign to any
financial position a dynamic ask (resp. bid) price process. Taking  
into account
both transaction costs and liquidity risk this leads to the convexity  
(resp.
concavity) of the ask (resp. bid) price. Time consistency is a  
crucial property
for dynamic pricing. Generalizing the result of Jouini and Kallal, we  
prove
that the No Free Lunch condition for a time consistent dynamic pricing
procedure (TCPP) is equivalent to the existence of an equivalent  
probability
measure $R$ that transforms a process between the bid process and the  
ask
process of any financial instrument into a martingale. Furthermore we  
prove
that the ask price process associated with any financial instrument  
is then a
$R$-supermartingale process which has a cadlag modification. Finally  
we show
that time consistent dynamic pricing allows both to extend the  
dynamics of some
reference assets and to be consistent with any observed bid ask  
spreads that
one wants to take into account. It then provides new bounds reducing  
the bid
ask spreads for the other financial instruments.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703074

---------------------------------------------------------------

5442. DONSKER THEOREM FOR THE ROSENBLATT PROCESS AND A BINARY MARKET  
MODEL

Ciprian Tudor (CES and  SAMOS) and  Soledad Torres

In this paper, we prove a Donsker type approximation theorem for the
Rosenblatt process, which is a selfsimilar stochastic process  
exhibiting long
range dependence. By using numerical results and simulated data, we  
show that
this approximation performs very well. We use this result to  
construct a binary
market model driven by this process and we show that the model admits  
arbitrage
opportunities.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703085

---------------------------------------------------------------

5443. MULTIDIMENSIONAL BIFRACTIONAL BROWNIAN MOTION: ITO AND TANAKA  
FORMULAS

Ciprian Tudor (CES and  SAMOS) and  Khalifa Es-Sebaiy

Using the Malliavin calculus with respect to Gaussian processes and the
multiple stochastic integrals we derive It\^{o}'s and Tanaka's  
formulas for the
$d$-dimensional bifractional Brownian motion.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703087

---------------------------------------------------------------

5444. THE STOCHASTIC HEAT EQUATION WITH A FRACTIONAL-COLORED NOISE:  
EXISTENCE  OF THE SOLUTION

Raluca Balan and  Ciprian Tudor (CES and  SAMOS)

In this article we consider the stochastic heat equation $u_{t}- 
\Delta u=\dot
B$ in $(0,T) \times \bR^d$, with vanishing initial conditions, driven  
by a
Gaussian noise $\dot B$ which is fractional in time, with Hurst index  
$H \in
(1/2,1)$, and colored in space, with spatial covariance given by a  
function
$f$. Our main result gives the necessary and sufficient condition on  
$H$ for
the existence of the process solution. When $f$ is the Riesz kernel  
of order
$\alpha \in (0,d)$ this condition is $H>(d-\alpha)/4$, which is a  
relaxation of
the condition $H>d/4$ encountered when the noise $\dot B$ is white in  
space.
When $f$ is the Bessel kernel or the heat kernel, the condition remains
$H>d/4$.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703088

---------------------------------------------------------------

5445. ON THE REGULARITY OF STOCHASTIC CURRENTS, FRACTIONAL BROWNIAN  
MOTION AND  APPLICATIONS TO A TURBULENCE MODEL

Franco Flandoli (DIPARTIMENTO Di Matematica Applicata Pisa) and    
Massimiliano Gubinelli (LM-Orsay), Francesco Russo (LAGA)

We study the pathwise regularity of the map $$ \phi \mapsto I(\phi) =
\int_0^T < \phi(X_t), dX_t>$$ where $\phi$ is a vector function on $ 
\R^d$
belonging to some Banach space $V$, $X$ is a stochastic process and the
integral is some version of a stochastic integral defined via  
regularization. A
\emph{stochastic current} is a continuous version of this map, seen  
as a random
element of the topological dual of $V$. We give sufficient conditions  
for the
current to live in some Sobolev space of distributions and we provide  
elements
to conjecture that those are also necessary. Next we verify the  
sufficient
conditions when the process $X$ is a $d$-dimensional fractional  
Brownian motion
(fBm); we identify regularity in Sobolev spaces for fBm with Hurst  
index $H \in
(1/4,1)$. Next we provide some results about general Sobolev  
regularity of
Brownian currents. Finally we discuss applications to a model of  
random vortex
filaments in turbulent fluids.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703100

---------------------------------------------------------------

5446. ON THE SPECTRAL NORM OF A RANDOM TOEPLITZ MATRIX

Mark W. Meckes

Suppose that $T_n$ is a Toeplitz matrix whose entries come from a  
sequence of
independent but not necessarily identically distributed random  
variables with
mean zero. Under some additional moment conditions, we show that the  
spectral
norm of $T_n$ is of the order $\sqrt{n \log n}$. The same result  
holds for
random Hankel matrices as well as other variants of random Toeplitz  
matrices
which have been studied in the literature.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703134

---------------------------------------------------------------

5447. EQUILIBRIUM STATES OF TWO STOCHASTIC MODELS IN MATHEMATICAL  
ECOLOGY

Feng Yu

This work deals with two problems arising in mathematical ecology.  
The first
problem is concerned with diploid branching particle models and its  
behavior
when rapid stirring is added to the interaction. The particle models  
involve
two types of particles, male and female, and branching can only occur  
when both
types of particles are present. We show that if the branching rate is
sufficiently large, this particle model has a nontrivial stationary
distribution, i.e. one that does not concentrate all weight on the  
all-0 state,
using a comparison argument due to R. Durrett. We also show  
extinction for
small branching rates, thereby establishing the existence of a phase
transition. We then add two different rapid stirring mechanisms to the
interactions and show that for the particle models with rapid  
stirring, there
also exist nontrivial stationary distribution(s); for this, we  
analyze the
limiting PDE and establish a condition on the PDE that guarantees  
existence of
nontrivial stationary distributions for sufficient fast stirring.
   The second problem deals with a model of sympatric speciation, i.e.
speciation in the absence of geographical separation, originally  
proposed by U.
Dieckmann and M. Doebeli in 1999. We modify their original model to  
obtain
several constant-population particle models. We concentrate on a
continuous-time model that converges to a deterministic dynamical  
system as the
number of particles becomes large. We establish various results  
regarding
whether speciation occurs by studying the existence of bimodal  
stationary
distributions for the limiting dynamical system.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703135

---------------------------------------------------------------

5448. MODERATE DEVIATIONS FOR LOG-LIKE FUNCTIONS OF STATIONARY  
GAUSSIAN  PROCESSES

Boris Tsirelson

A moderate deviation principle for nonlinear functions of Gaussian  
processes
is established. The nonlinear functions need not be locally bounded.
Especially, the logarithm is allowed. (Thus, small deviations of the  
process
are relevant.) Both discrete and continuous time is treated. An  
integrable
power-like decay of the correlation function is assumed.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703289

---------------------------------------------------------------

5449. SEPARATION CUTOFFS FOR RANDOM WALK ON IRREDUCIBLE REPRESENTATIONS

Jason Fulman

Random walk on the irreducible representations of the symmetric and  
general
linear groups is studied. A separation distance cutoff is proved and  
the exact
separation distance asymptotics are determined. A key tool is a  
method for
writing the multiplicities in the Kronecker tensor powers of a fixed
representation as a sum of non-negative terms. Connections are made  
with the
Lagrange-Sylvester interpolation approach to Markov chains.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703291

---------------------------------------------------------------

5450. THE CONDITION NUMBER OF A RANDOMLY PERTURBED MATRIX

Terence Tao and  Van Vu

Let $M$ be an arbitrary $n$ by $n$ matrix. We study the condition  
number a
random perturbation $M+N_n$ of $M$, where $N_n$ is a random matrix.  
It is shown
that, under very general conditions on $M$ and $M_n$, the condition  
number of
$M+N_n$ is polynomial in $n$ with very high probability. The main  
novelty here
is that we allow $N_n$ to have discrete distribution.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703307

---------------------------------------------------------------

5451. A PROOF OF A NON-COMMUTATIVE CENTRAL LIMIT THEOREM BY THE  
LINDEBERG  METHOD

Vladislav Kargin

A Central Limit Theorem for non-commutative random variables is  
proved using
the Lindeberg method. The theorem is a generalization of the Central  
Limit
Theorem for free random variables proved by Voiculescu. The Central  
Limit
Theorem in this paper relies on an assumption which is weaker than  
freeness.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703345

---------------------------------------------------------------

5452. NON-NEGATIVE INTEGER-VALUED SEMI-SELFSIMILAR PROCESSES

S Satheesh and E Sandhya

Non-negative integer-valued semi-selfsimilar processes are  
introduced. Levy
processes in this class are characterized. Its relation to an AR(1)  
scheme is
derived.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703346

---------------------------------------------------------------

5453. RATE OF CONVERRGENCE FOR ERGODIC CONTINUOUS MARKOV PROCESSES :  
LYAPUNOV  VERSUS POINCARE

Dominique Bakry (LSProba) and  Patrick Cattiaux (MODAL'X and  CMAP)  
and  Arnaud  Guillin (LATP)

We study the relationship between two classical approaches for  
quantitative
ergodic properties : the first one based on Lyapunov type controls and
popularized by Meyn and Tweedie, the second one based on functional
inequalities (of Poincar\'e type). We show that they can be linked  
through new
inequalities (Lyapunov-Poincar\'e inequalities). Explicit examples for
diffusion processes are studied, improving some results in the  
literature. The
example of the kinetic Fokker-Planck equation recently studied by H 
\'erau-Nier,
Helffer-Nier and Villani is in particular discussed in the final  
section.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703355

---------------------------------------------------------------

5454. IS THE UNIVERSE NOISE-SENSITIVE?

Gil Kalai

The dichotomy between noise-stable and (completely) noise-sensitive
stochastic models is of recent interest in probability theory. Of  
particular
interest is the study of lattice models coming from statistical  
physics. The
Fourier transform of noise-sensitive lattice models is concentrated  
on high
eigenvalues and is described by "large" stochastic geometric objects.  
Noise
sensitivity occurs quite surprisingly in various models like critical
percolation, and is forced by certain symmetry conditions.
   It appears that basic models from high-energy physics are noise  
stable; This
is the impression from the basic mathematical frameworks used for  
describing
them, and also from the description in terms of particles and  
interactions
involving a small number of particles.
   More general stochastic models with noise-sensitive components  
will not make
a difference in measurements involving particles and their  
interactions, but
may provide additional modeling power to proceed where current models  
are
insufficient.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/hep-th/0703092

---------------------------------------------------------------

5455. DOES THERE EXIST THE LEBESGUE MEASURE IN THE INFINITE- 
DIMENSIONAL SPACE?

Anatly Vershik

We consider the sigma-finite measures in the space of vector-valued
distributions on the manifold $X$ with Laplace transform
   $$\Psi(f)=\exp\{-\theta\int_X\ln||f(x)||dx\}, \theta>0.$$
   We prove that the weak limit of Haar measures on the Cartan  
subgroup of the
group $SL(n,{\Bbb R})$ when $n$ tends to infinity is just that  
measure which we
called infinite dimensional Lebesgue measure.
   This measure is invariant under the linear action of some
infinite-dimensional Abelian group. Application to the representation  
theory of
the current groups was one of the reason to define this measure. The  
measure
also is closely related to the Poisson--Dirichlet measures well known in
combinatorics and probability theory. The only known example of the  
analogous
asymptotical behavior of the uniform measure on the homogeneous  
manifold is
{\it classical Maxwell-Poincar\'e lemma} which asserts that the weak  
limit of
uniform measures on the Euclidean sphere of appropriate radius as  
dimension
tends to infinity is the standard infinite-dimensional Gaussian  
measure. In our
situation all the measures are no more finite but sigma-finite.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math-ph/0703033

---------------------------------------------------------------

5456. APPROXIMATION OF QUANTUM LEVY PROCESSES BY QUANTUM RANDOM WALKS

Uwe Franz and  Adam Skalski

Every quantum Levy process with a bounded stochastic generator is  
shown to
arise as a strong limit of a family of suitably scaled quantum random  
walks.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703339

---------------------------------------------------------------

5457. ON A REMARKABLE SEMIGROUP OF HOMOMORPHISMS WITH RESPECT TO  
FREE  MULTIPLICATIVE CONVOLUTION

Serban T. Belinschi and Alexandru Nica

Let M denote the space of Borel probability measures on the real  
line. For
every nonnegative t we consider the transformation $\mathbb B_t : M  
\to M$
defined for any given element in M by taking succesively the the (1 
+t) power
with respect to free additive convolution and then the 1/(1+t) power  
with
respect Boolean convolution of the given element. We show that the  
family of
maps {\mathbb B_t|t\geq 0} is a semigroup with respect to the  
operation of
composition and that, quite surprisingly, every $\mathbb B_t$ is a  
homomorphism
for the operation of free multiplicative convolution.
   We prove that for t=1 the transformation $\mathbb B_1$ coincides  
with the
canonical bijection $\mathbb B : M \to M_{inf-div}$ discovered by  
Bercovici and
Pata in their study of the relations between infinite divisibility in  
free and
in Boolean probability. Here M_{inf-div} stands for the set of  
probability
distributions in M which are infinitely divisible with respect to  
free additive
convolution. As a consequence, we have that $\mathbb B_t(\mu)$ is  
infinitely
divisible with respect to free additive convolution for any for every  
$\mu$ in
M and every t greater than or equal to one.
   On the other hand we put into evidence a relation between the  
transformations
$\mathbb B_t$ and the free Brownian motion; indeed, Theorem 4 of the  
paper
gives an interpretation of the transformations $\mathbb B_t$ as a way of
re-casting the free Brownian motion, where the resulting process becomes
multiplicative with respect to free multiplicative convolution, and  
always
reaches infinite divisibility with respect to free additive  
convolution by the
time t=1.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703295

---------------------------------------------------------------

5458. LARGE DEVIATIONS FOR PARTITION FUNCTIONS OF DIRECTED POLYMERS  
AND SOME  OTHER MODELS IN AN IID FIELD

Iddo Ben-Ari

Consider the partition function of a directed polymer in an IID  
field. We
assume that both tails of the negative and the positive part of the  
field are
at least as light as exponential. It is a well-known fact that the  
free energy
of the polymer is equal to a deterministic constant for almost every
realization of the field and that the upper tail of the large  
deviations is
exponential. The lower tail of the large deviations is typically  
lighter than
exponential. In this paper we provide a method to obtain estimates on  
the rate
of decay of the lower tail of the large deviations, which are sharp  
up to
multiplicative constants. As a consequence, we show that the lower  
tail of the
large deviations exhibits three regimes, determined according to the  
tail of
the negative part of the field. Our method is simple to apply and can  
be used
to cover other oriented and non-oriented models including first/last- 
passage
percolation and the parabolic Anderson model


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.3758

---------------------------------------------------------------

5459. ON THE NUMBER OF COLLISIONS IN $\LAMBDA$-COALESCENTS

Alexander Gnedin and  Yuri Yakubovich

We examine the total number of collisions $C_n$ in the $\Lambda$- 
coalescent
process which starts with $n$ particles. A linear growth and a stable  
limit law
for $C_n$ are shown under the assumption of a power-like behaviour of  
the
measure $\Lambda$ near 0 with exponent $0<\alpha<1$.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.3902

---------------------------------------------------------------

5460. SMOOTHNESS OF THE LAW OF SOME ONE-DIMENSIONAL JUMPING S.D.E.S  
WITH  NON-CONSTANT RATE OF JUMP

Nicolas Fournier

We consider a one-dimensional jumping Markov process $\{X^x_t\}_{t  
\geq 0}$,
solving a Poisson-driven stochastic differential equation. We prove  
that the
law of $X^x_t$ admits a smooth density for $t>0$, under some  
regularity and
non-degeneracy assumptions on the coefficients of the S.D.E. To our  
knowledge,
our result is the first one including the important case of a non- 
constant rate
of jump. The main difficulty is that in such a case, the map $x  
\mapsto X^x_t$
is not smooth. This seems to make impossible the use of Malliavin  
calculus
techniques. To overcome this problem, we introduce a new method, in  
which the
propagation of the smoothness of the density is obtained by analytic  
arguments.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.3922

---------------------------------------------------------------

5461. DYNAMIC PROGRAMMING PRINCIPLE FOR ONE KIND OF STOCHASTIC  
RECURSIVE  OPTIMAL CONTROL PROBLEM AND HAMILTON-JACOBI-BELLMAN EQUATIONS

Zhen Wu and  Zhiyong Yu

In this paper, we study one kind of stochastic recursive optimal control
problem with the obstacle constraints for the cost function where the  
cost
function is described by the solution of one reflected backward  
stochastic
differential equations. We will give the dynamic programming  
principle for this
kind of optimal control problem and show that the value function is  
the unique
viscosity solution of the obstacle problem for the corresponding
Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equations.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.3775

---------------------------------------------------------------

5462. THE SCALING LIMIT OF FOMIN'S IDENTITY FOR TWO PATHS

Michael J. Kozdron (University of Regina)

We review some recently completed research that establishes the  
scaling limit
of Fomin's identity for loop-erased random walk on Z^2, and in the  
case of two
paths prove directly that the corresponding identity holds for  
chordal SLE(2).


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703615

---------------------------------------------------------------

5463. QUOTIENT PROBABILISTIC NORMED SPACES AND COMPLETENESS RESULTS

Bernardo Lafuerza-Guillen and  Donal O'Regan and Reza Saadati

We introduce the concept of quotient in PN spaces and give some  
examples. We
prove some theorems with regard to the completeness of a quotient.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703629

---------------------------------------------------------------

5464. DYNAMICS OF POSTCRITICALLY BOUNDED POLYNOMIAL SEMIGROUPS

Hiroki Sumi

We investigate the dynamics of semigroups generated by a family of  
polynomial
maps on the Riemann sphere such that the postcritical set in the  
complex plane
is bounded. Moreover, we investigate the associated random dynamics of
polynomials. We show that for such a polynomial semigroup, if $A$ and  
$B$ are
two connected components of the Julia set, then one of $A$ and $B$  
surrounds
the other. Moreover, we show that for any $n\in \Bbb{N} \cup \{\aleph_ 
{0}\} ,$
there exists a finitely generated polynomial semigroup with bounded  
planar
postcritical set such that the cardinality of the set of all connected
components of the Julia set is equal to $n.$ Furthermore, we show  
that under a
certain condition, a random Julia set is almost surely a Jordan  
curve, but not
a quasicircle. Many phenomena of polynomial semigroups and random  
dynamics of
polynomials that do not occur in the usual dynamics of polynomials  
are found
and investigated.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703591

---------------------------------------------------------------

5465. A DYNAMICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF POISSON-DIRICHLET DISTRIBUTIONS

Louis-Pierre Arguin

In this note, we show that a slight modification of a theorem of  
Ruzmaikina
and Aizenman on competing particle systems on the real line leads to a
characterization of Poisson-Dirichlet distributions $PD(a,0)$.
   Precisely, let $s$ be a proper random mass-partition i.e. a random  
sequence
$(s_i, i\in\N)$ such that $s_1\geq s_2\geq ...$ and $\sum_i s_i=1$ a.s.
Consider ${h_i}_{i\in\N}$, an iid sequence of real random variables  
with finite
Laplace transform. It is shown that if the law of $s$ is invariant  
under a
random multiplicative shift $s_i e^{h_i}$ of the atoms followed by a
renormalization, then it must be a mixture of Poisson-Dirichlet  
distribution
$PD(a,0)$, $a\in (0,1)$.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703741

---------------------------------------------------------------

5466. GENERALIZED ZIG-ZAG PRODUCTS OF REGULAR DIGRAPHS AND BOUNDS ON  
THEIR  SPECTRAL EXPANSIONS

Shunichi Nomura and Akimichi Takemura

We introduce a generalization of the zig-zag product of regular digraphs
(directed graphs), which allows us to construct regular digraphs with  
m ore
flexible choices of the degrees. In our generalization, we can  
control the
connectivity of the resulting graph measured by its spectral  
expansion. We
derive an upper bound on the spectral expansion of the generalized  
zig-zag
product. Our upper bound improves on known bounds when applied to the  
zig-zag
product. We also consider a special case of the generalized zig-zag  
product,
where one of the components is a trivial graph whose edges are all  
self-loops.
We call it a reduced zig-zag product and derive a bound on the spectral
expansion of its powers.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703742

---------------------------------------------------------------

5467. IMPLICATIONS OF CONTRARIAN AND ONE-SIDED STRATEGIES FOR THE  
FAIR-COIN  GAME

Yasunori Horikoshi and Akimichi Takemura

We derive some results on contrarian and one-sided strategies by  
Skeptic for
the fair-coin game in the framework of the game-theoretic probability  
of Shafer
and Vovk \cite{sv}. In particular, concerning the rate of convergence  
of the
strong law of large numbers (SLLN), we prove that Skeptic can force  
that the
convergence has to be slower than or equal to $O(n^{-1/2})$. This is  
achieved
by a very simple contrarian strategy of Skeptic. This type of result,  
bounding
the rate of convergence from below, contrasts with more standard  
results of
bounding the rate of SLLN from above by using momentum strategies. We  
also
derive a corresponding one-sided result.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703743

---------------------------------------------------------------

5468. ON THE INVARIANT DISTRIBUTION OF A ONE-DIMENSIONAL AVALANCHE  
PROCESS

Xavier Bressaud and Nicolas Fournier

We consider an interacting particle system $(\eta_t)_{t\geq 0}$ with  
values
in $\{0,1\}^{\mathbb{Z}}$, in which each vacant site becomes occupied  
with rate
1, while each connected component of occupied sites become vacant  
with rate
equal to its size. We show that such a process admits a unique invariant
distribution, which is exponentially mixing and can be perfectly  
simulated. We
also prove that for any initial condition, the avalanche process  
tends to
equilibrium exponentially fast, as time increases to infinity.  
Finally, we
consider a related mean-field coagulation-fragmentation model, we  
compute its
invariant distribution, and we show numerically that it is very close  
to that
of the interacting particle system.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703750

---------------------------------------------------------------

5469. POISSON LIMIT OF AN INHOMOGENEOUS NEARLY CRITICAL INAR(1) MODEL

L\'aszl\'o Gy\"orfi (1) and  M\'arton Isp\'any (2) and  Gyula Pap (2)  
and  Katalin Varga (1) (1)(Department of Computer Science and  
Information Theory,
   Budapest University of Technology and Economics) (2)(Department of  
Applied
   Mathematics and Probability Theory, Faculty of Informatics,  
University of
   Debrecen)

An inhomogeneous first--order integer--valued autoregressive (INAR(1))
process is investigated, where the autoregressive type coefficient  
slowly
converges to one. It is shown that the process converges weakly to a  
Poisson or
a compound Poisson distribution.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703754

---------------------------------------------------------------

5470. SELF-CORRECTION OF TRANSMISSION ON REGULAR TREES

Alberto Gandolfi and Roberto Guenzani

We consider noisy binary channels on regular trees and introduce  
periodic
enhancements consisting of locally self-correcting the signal in  
blocks without
break of the symmetry of the model. We focus on the realistic class of
within-descent self-correction realized by identifying all  
descendants $k$
generations down a vertex with their majority. We show that this also  
allows
reconstruction strictly beyond the critical distortion. We further  
identify the
limit at which the critical distortions of within-descent $k$ self- 
corrected
transmission converge, which turns out to be the critical point for
ferromagnetic Ising model on that tree. We finally discuss how similar
phenomena take place with the biologically more plausible mechanism of
eliminating signals which are locally not coherent with the majority.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703762

---------------------------------------------------------------

5471. IMPULSE CONTROL PROBLEM ON FINITE HORIZON WITH EXECUTION DELAY

Benjamin Bruder (PMA) and  Huyen Pham (PMA)

We consider impulse control problems in finite horizon for diffusions  
with
decision lag and execution delay. The new feature is that our general  
framework
deals with the important case when several consecutive orders may be  
decided
before the effective execution of the first one. This is motivated by  
financial
applications in the trading of illiquid assets such as hedge funds.  
We show
that the value functions for such control problems satisfy a suitable  
version
of dynamic programming principle in finite dimension, which takes  
into account
the past dependence of state process through the pending orders. The
corresponding Bellman partial differential equations (PDE) system is  
derived,
and exhibit some peculiarities on the coupled equations, domains and  
boundary
conditions. We prove a unique characterization of the value functions  
to this
nonstandard PDE system by means of viscosity solutions. We then  
provide an
algorithm to find the value functions and the optimal control. This  
easily
implementable algorithm involves backward and forward iterations on  
the domains
and the value functions, which appear in turn as original arguments  
in the
proofs for the boundary conditions and uniqueness results.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703769

---------------------------------------------------------------

5472. NONEQUILIBRIUM FLUCTUATIONS FOR A TAGGED PARTICLE IN MEAN-ZERO   
ONE-DIMENSIONAL ZERO-RANGE PROCESSES

M.D. Jara and  C. Landim and  S. Sethuraman

We prove a non-equilibrium functional central limit theorem for the  
position
of a tagged particle in mean-zero one-dimensional zero-range process.  
The
asymptotic behavior of the tagged particle is described by a stochastic
differential equation governed by the solution of the hydrodynamic  
equation.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703226

---------------------------------------------------------------

5473. CENTRAL LIMIT THEOREMS FOR MULTIPLE STOCHASTIC INTEGRALS AND  
MALLIAVIN  CALCULUS

David Nualart and  Salvador Ortiz

We give a new characterization for the convergence in distribution to a
standard normal law of a sequence of multiple stochastic integrals of  
a fixed
order with variance one, in terms of the Malliavin derivatives of the  
sequence.
We extend our result to the multidimensional case and prove a weak  
convergence
result for a sequence of square integrable random variables.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703240

---------------------------------------------------------------

5474. SAMPLE SIZE AND POSITIVE FALSE DISCOVERY RATE CONTROL FOR  
MULTIPLE  TESTING

Zhiyi Chi

Positive false discovery rate (pFDR) is a useful overall measure of  
errors
for multiple hypothesis testing, especially when the underlying goal  
is to
attain one or more discoveries. Control of pFDR critically depends on  
how much
evidence is available from data to distinguish between false and true  
nulls.
Oftentimes, as many aspects of the data distributions are unknown,  
one may not
be able to obtain strong enough evidence from the data for pFDR  
control. This
raises the question as to how much data is needed in order to attain  
a target
pFDR level. We study the asymptotics of the minimum number of  
observations per
null for the pFDR control associated with multiple Studentized tests  
and F
tests, especially when the differences between false nulls and true  
nulls are
small. For Studentized tests, we consider tests on shifts or other  
parameters
associated with normal and general distributions. For F tests, we  
also take
into account the effect of the number of covariates in linear  
regression. The
results show that in determining the minimum sample size per null for  
pFDR
control, higher order statistical properties of data are important,  
and the
number of covariates is important in tests to detect regression effects.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703229

---------------------------------------------------------------

5475. COUNTING MAGIC SQUARES IN QUASI-POLYNOMIAL TIME

Alexander Barvinok and  Alex Samorodnitsky and  and Alexander Yong

We present a randomized algorithm, which, given positive integers n  
and t and
a real number 0< epsilon <1, computes the number Sigma(n, t) of n x n
non-negative integer matrices (magic squares) with the row and column  
sums
equal to t within relative error epsilon. The computational  
complexity of the
algorithm is polynomial in 1/epsilon and quasi-polynomial in N=nt,  
that is, of
the order N^{log N}. A simplified version of the algorithm works in time
polynomial in 1/epsilon and N and estimates Sigma(n,t) within a  
factor of
N^{log N}. This simplified version has been implemented. We present  
results of
the implementation, state some conjectures, and discuss possible
generalizations.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703227

---------------------------------------------------------------

5476. NOISE STABILITY OF FUNCTIONS WITH LOW INFLUENCES: INVARIANCE  
AND  OPTIMALITY II - THE NON REVERSIBLE CASE

Elchanan Mossel

We generalize an invariance principle recently obtained with  
O'Donnell and
Oleszkiewicz for multilinear polynomials with low influences and bounded
degree. The generalization proven here shows invariance of the joint
distribution of several multi-linear polynomials. This in turn allows  
to obtain
optimal bounds on ``noise sensitivity'' defined by non-reversible noise
operators generalizing recent results.
   We present two applications of the generalized invariance  
principle to the
theory of social choice. We show that Majority is asymptotically the  
most
predictable function among all low influence functions given a random  
sample of
the voters.
   Moreover, we derive an almost tight bound in the context of Condorcet
aggregation and low influence voting schemes on a large number of  
candidates.
In particular, we show that for every low influence aggregation  
function, the
probability that Condorcet voting on $k$ candidates will result in a  
unique
candidate that is preferable to all other is $k^{-1+o(1)}$. This  
matches the
asymptotic behavior of the majority function for which the  
probability is
$k^{-1-o(1)}$.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703683

---------------------------------------------------------------

5477. SCHUR-WEYL DUALITY AND THE HEAT KERNEL MEASURE ON THE UNITARY  
GROUP

Thierry L\'{e}vy (DMA)

We establish a convergent power series expansion for the expectation  
of a
product of traces of powers of a random unitary matrix under the heat  
kernel
measure. These expectations turn out to be the generating series of  
certain
paths in the Cayley graph of the symmetric group. We then compute the
asymptotic distribution of a random unitary matrix under the heat kernel
measure on the unitary group $\Un$ as $N$ tends to infinity, and  
prove a result
of asymptotic freeness result for independent large unitary matrices,  
thus
recovering results obtained previously by Xu and Biane. We give an
interpretation of our main expansion in terms of random ramified  
coverings of a
disk. Our approach is based on the Schur-Weyl duality and we extend  
some of our
results to the orthogonal and symplectic cases.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703690

---------------------------------------------------------------

5478. ON THE SUPREMUM OF RANDOM DIRICHLET POLYNOMIALS

Mikhail Lifshits and  Michel Weber

We study the supremum of some random Dirichlet polynomials and obtain  
sharp
upper and lower bounds for supremum expectation that extend the optimal
estimate of Hal\'asz-Queff\'elec and enable to cunstruct random  
polynomials
with unusually small maxima.
   Our approach in proving these results is entirely based on methods of
stochastic processes, in particular the metric entropy method.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703691

---------------------------------------------------------------

5479. SAMPLING THE LINDEL\"OF HYPOTHESIS WITH THE CAUCHY RANDOM WALK

Mikhail Lifshits and  Michel Weber

We study the behavior of the Riemann zeta function on the critical  
line when
the imaginary part of the argument is sampled by the Cauchy random  
walk. We
develop a complete second order theory for the corresponding system  
of random
variables and show that it behaves almost like a system of non- 
correlated
variables. Exploiting this fact in relation with known criteria for  
almost sure
convergence allows to investigate its almost sure asymptotic behavior.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703693

---------------------------------------------------------------

5480. DIVISORS OF BERNOULLI SUMS

Michel Weber

We study the asymptotic behavior of the sums of divisors when the  
integers
are modelled with the Bernoulli random walk; We prealably study the  
correlation
properties of the corresponding system.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703696

---------------------------------------------------------------

5481. STOCHASTIC CALCULUS FOR FRACTIONAL BROWNIAN MOTION WITH HURST  
EXPONENT

Jeremie Unterberger

The d-dimensional fractional Brownian motion (FBM for short)
$B_t=((B_t^{(1)},...,B_t^{(d)},t\in\R)$ with Hurst exponent $\alpha$,
$\alpha\in(0,1)$, is a d-dimensional centered, self-similar Gaussian  
process
with covariance $<B_s^{(i)} B_t^{(j)}> = 1/2 \delta_{i,j}
(|s|^{2\alpha}+|t|^{2\alpha}-|t-s|^{2\alpha})$. The long-standing  
problem of
defining a stochastic integration with respect to FBM (and the  
related problem
of solving stochastic differential equations driven by FBM) has been  
addressed
successfully by several different methods, although in each case with a
restriction on the range of either $d$ or $\alpha$. The case $\alpha= 
\half$
corresponds to the usual stochastic integration with respect to Brownian
motion, while most computations become singular when $\alpha$ gets under
various threshhold values, due to the growing irregularity of the  
trajectories
as $\alpha\to 0$.
   We provide here a new method valid for any $d$ and for $\alpha> 
{1/4}$ by
constructing an approximation $\Gamma(\eps)_t$, $\eps\to 0$, of FBM  
which
allows to define iterated integrals, and then applying the geometric  
rough path
theory. The approximation relies on the definition of an analytic  
process
$\Gamma_z$ on the cut plane $z\in\C\setminus\R$ of which FBM appears  
to be a
boundary value, and allows to understand very precisely the well- 
known (see
\cite{CQ02}) but as yet a little mysterious divergence of L\'evy's  
area for
$\alpha\to{1/4}$.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703697

---------------------------------------------------------------

5482. EFFECTIVE MACROSCOPIC DYNAMICS OF STOCHASTIC PARTIAL  
DIFFERENTIAL  EQUATIONS IN PERFORATED DOMAINS

Wei Wang and  Daomin Cao and Jinqiao Duan

An effective macroscopic model for a stochastic microscopic system is
derived. The original microscopic system is modeled by a stochastic  
partial
differential equation defined on a domain perforated with small holes or
heterogeneities. The homogenized effective model is still a  
stochastic partial
differential equation but defined on a unified domain without holes. The
solutions of the microscopic model is shown to converge to those of the
effective macroscopic model in probability distribution, as the size  
of holes
diminishes to zero. Moreover, the long time effectivity of the  
macroscopic
system in the sense of \emph{convergence in probability  
distribution}, and the
effectivity of the macroscopic system in the sense of \emph 
{convergence in
energy} are also proved.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703709

---------------------------------------------------------------

5483. THE LITTLEWOOD-OFFORD PROBLEM AND INVERTIBILITY OF RANDOM MATRICES

Mark Rudelson and Roman Vershynin

We prove two basic conjectures on the distribution of the smallest  
singular
value of random n times n matrices with independent entries. Under  
minimal
moment assumptions, we show that the smallest singular value is of order
n^{-1/2}, which is optimal for Gaussian matrices. Moreover, we give a  
optimal
estimate on the tail probability. This comes as a consequence of a  
new and
essentially sharp estimate in the Littlewood-Offord problem: for  
i.i.d. random
variables X_k and real numbers a_k, determine the probability P that  
the sum of
a_k X_k lies near some number v. For arbitrary coefficients a_k of  
the same
order of magnitude, we show that they essentially lie in an arithmetic
progression of length 1/p.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703503

---------------------------------------------------------------

5484. DISPERSION MEASURE FOR SYMMETRIC, STABLE PROBABILITY DISTRIBUTIONS

Jussi I. Tyhtila

Stable distributions is an interesting and important class of  
probability
distributions. They were discovered explicitly by Paul L\'{e}vy in 1925
\cite{lk}. They possess many interesting properties, most importantly  
they are
by definiton invariant under addition, up to a scale. Noteworthly  
they have
power-law type of decay and therefore they are an excellent model for  
modelling
many natural phenomena, such as earthquakes, financial returns, and a  
multitude
of social phenomena such as size distributions of cities and firms
\cite{scaling}. The major problem concerning them is that they have  
an infinite
variance \cite{GK} and therefore their practical applicability is  
somewhat
limited. Also they generally do not possess a density expressible in an
analytic form. This study proposes a dispersion measure for them,  
drawing ideas
from Fisher information, differential geometry and most importantly, the
uncertainty principle for Fourier transform pairs \cite{Weyl}. The  
study begins
with a brief discussion on characteristic functions and their  
relation to
Fourier transforms and their properties, proceeds to a brief  
presentation of
stable distributions and accumulates in defining a concept of
\textit{characteristic curvature}, which is proposed as a suitable  
measure of
dispersion for class of stable distributions.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703513

---------------------------------------------------------------

5485. PROPERTIES OF CENTERED RANDOM WALKS ON LOCALLY COMPACT GROUPS  
AND LIE  GROUPS

Nick Dungey

The basic aim of this paper is to study asymptotic properties of the
convolution powers K^(n) = K * K * ... * K of a possibly non-symmetric
probability density K on a locally compact, compactly generated group  
G. If K
is centered, we show that the Markov operator T associated with K is  
analytic
in L^p(G) for 1<p<\infty, and establish Davies-Gaffney estimates in  
L^2 for the
iterated operators T^n. These results enable us to obtain various  
Gaussian
bounds on K^(n). In particular, when G is a Lie group we recover and  
extend
some estimates of Alexopoulos and of Varopoulos for convolution  
powers of
centered densities and for the heat kernels of centered  
sublaplacians. Finally,
in case G is amenable, we discover that the properties of analyticity or
Davies-Gaffney estimates hold only if K is centered.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703530

---------------------------------------------------------------

5486. H{\"O}LDER CONTINUITY OF RANDOM PROCESSES

Witold Bednorz

The paper will be published in JOTP.
   In the paper we prove Holder Continuity for ceratian classes of  
processes
with bounded increments. The paper generalizes results obtained by  
Kwapien and
Rosinski in Sample H{\"o}lder continuity of stochastic processes and  
majorizing
measures. \textit{Seminar on Stochastic Analysis, Random Fields and
Applications IV, Progr. in Probab.} {\bf 58}, 155--163. Birkh{\"a} 
user, Basel.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703545

---------------------------------------------------------------

5487. A NOTE ON BAYESIAN NONPARAMETRIC PRIORS DERIVED FROM  
EXPONENTIALLY  TILTED POISSON-KINGMAN MODELS

Annalisa Cerquetti

We derive the class of normalized generalized Gamma processes from
Poisson-Kingman models (Pitman, 2003) with tempered alfa-stable mixing
distribution. Relying on this construction it can be shown that in  
Bayesian
nonparametrics, results on quantities of statistical interest under  
those
priors, like the analogous of the Blackwell-MacQueen prediction rules  
or the
distribution of the number of distinct elements observed in a sample,  
arise as
immediate consequences of Pitman's results.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703552

---------------------------------------------------------------

5488. ON THE RATE OF GROWTH OF L\'EVY PROCESSES WITH NO POSITIVE  
JUMPS  CONDITIONED TO STAY POSITIVE

J.C. Pardo

In this article, we study the asymptotic behaviour of L\'evy  
processes with
no positive jumps conditioned to stay positive. We establish integral  
tests for
the lower envelope at 0 and at $+\infty$ and an analogue of  
Khintchin's law of
the iterated logarithm at 0 and $+\infty$, for the upper envelope.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703560

---------------------------------------------------------------

5489. HOMOGENIZED DYNAMICS OF STOCHASTIC PARTIAL DIFFERENTIAL  
EQUATIONS WITH  DYNAMICAL BOUNDARY CONDITIONS

Wei Wang and Jinqiao Duan

A microscopic heterogeneous system under random influence is  
considered. The
randomness enters the system at physical boundary of small scale  
obstacles as
well as at the interior of the physical medium. This system is  
modeled by a
stochastic partial differential equation defined on a domain  
perforated with
small holes (obstacles or heterogeneities), together with random  
dynamical
boundary conditions on the boundaries of these small holes.
   A homogenized macroscopic model for this microscopic heterogeneous  
stochastic
system is derived. This homogenized effective model is a new  
stochastic partial
differential equation defined on a unified domain without small  
holes, with
static boundary condition only. In fact, the random dynamical boundary
conditions are homogenized out, but the impact of random forces on  
the small
holes' boundaries is quantified as an extra stochastic term in the  
homogenized
stochastic partial differential equation. Moreover, the validity of the
homogenized model is justified by showing that the solutions of the  
microscopic
model converge to those of the effective macroscopic model in  
probability
distribution, as the size of small holes diminishes to zero.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703537

---------------------------------------------------------------

5490. LIMIT THEOREMS FOR RADIAL RANDOM WALKS ON PXQ-MATRICES AS P  
TENDS TO  INFINITY

Margit R\"osler and  Michael Voit

The radial probability measures on $R^p$ are in a one-to-one  
correspondence
with probability measures on $[0,\infty[$ by taking images of  
measures w.r.t.
the Euclidean norm mapping. For fixed $\nu\in M^1([0,\infty[)$ and each
dimension p, we consider i.i.d. $R^p$-valued random variables  
$X_1^p,X_2^p,...$
with radial laws corresponding to $\nu$ as above. We derive weak and  
strong
laws of large numbers as well as a large deviation principle for the  
Euclidean
length processes $S_k^p:=\|X_1^p+...+X_k^p\|$ as k,p\to\infty in  
suitable ways.
   In fact, we derive these results in a higher rank setting, where  
$R^p$ is
replaced by the space of $p\times q$ matrices and $[0,\infty[$ by the  
cone
$\Pi_q$ of positive semidefinite matrices. Proofs are based on the  
fact that
the $(S_k^p)_{k\ge 0}$ form Markov chains on the cone whose transition
probabilities are given in terms Bessel functions $J_\mu$ of matrix  
argument
with an index $\mu$ depending on p. The limit theorems follow from new
asymptotic results for the $J_\mu$ as $\mu\to \infty$. Similar  
results are also
proven for certain Dunkl-type Bessel functions.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703520

---------------------------------------------------------------

5491. KAKEYA SETS AND DIRECTIONAL MAXIMAL OPERATORS IN THE PLANE

Michael Bateman

We completely characterize the boundedness of planar directional maximal
operators on L^p. More precisely, if Omega is a set of directions, we  
show that
M_Omega, the maximal operator associated to line segments in the  
directions
Omega, is unbounded on L^p, for all p < infinity, precisely when  
Omega admits
Kakeya-type sets. In fact, we show that if Omega does not admit  
Kakeya sets,
then Omega is a generalized lacunary set, and hence M_Omega is  
bounded on L^p,
for p>1.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703559

---------------------------------------------------------------

5492. NONLINEAR FILTERING WITH OPTIMAL MTLL

E. Fischler and Z. Schuss

We consider the problem of nonlinear filtering of one-dimensional  
diffusions
from noisy measurements. The filter is said to lose lock if the  
estimation
error exits a prescribed region. In the case of phase estimation this  
region is
one period of the phase measurement function, e.g., $[-\pi,\pi]$. We  
show that
in the limit of small noise the causal filter that maximizes the mean  
time to
loose lock is Bellman's minimum noise energy filter.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703524

---------------------------------------------------------------

5493. GIBBS FRAGMENTATION TREES

Peter McCullagh and  Jim Pitman and Matthias Winkel

We study fragmentation trees of Gibbs type. In the binary case, we  
identify
the most general Gibbs type fragmentation tree with Aldous's beta- 
splitting
model, which has an extended parameter range $\beta>-2$ with respect  
to the
${\rm Beta}(\beta+1,\beta+1)$ probability distributions on which it  
is based.
In the multifurcating case, we show that Gibbs fragmentation trees are
associated with the two-parameter Poisson-Dirichlet models for  
exchangeable
random partitions of $\bN$, with an extended parameter range $0\le 
\alpha\le 1$,
$\theta\ge -2\alpha$ and $\alpha<0$, $\theta=-m\alpha$, $m\in\bN$.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.0945

---------------------------------------------------------------

5494. ONE-DIMENSIONAL BROWNIAN PARTICLE SYSTEMS WITH RANK DEPENDENT  
DRIFTS

Soumik Pal and Jim Pitman

We study interacting systems of linear Brownian motions whose drift  
vector at
every time point is determined by the relative ranks of the coordinate
processes at that time. Our main objective has been to study the long  
range
behavior of the spacings between the particles in increasing order.
   For finite systems, we characterize drifts for which the spacing  
system
remains stable, and show its convergence to a unique stationary joint
distribution given by independent exponential distributions with  
varying means.
We also study one particular countably infinite system, where only  
the minimum
Brownian particle gets a constant upward drift, and prove that  
independent and
identically distributed exponential spacings remain stationary under the
dynamics of such a process.
   Some related conjectures in this direction have also been discussed.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.0957

---------------------------------------------------------------

5495. ALMOST SURE FUNCTIONAL CENTRAL LIMIT THEOREM FOR NON-NESTLING  
RANDOM  WALK IN RANDOM ENVIRONMENT

Firas Rassoul-Agha and Timo Seppalainen

We consider a non-nestling random walk in a product random  
environment. We
assume an exponential moment for the step of the walk, uniformly in the
environment. We prove an invariance principle (functional central limit
theorem) under almost every environment for the centered and  
diffusively scaled
walk. The main point behind the invariance principle is that the  
quenched mean
of the walk behaves subdiffusively.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.1022

---------------------------------------------------------------

5496. STATISTICS OF LOW ENERGY EXCITATIONS FOR THE DIRECTED POLYMER  
IN A $1+D$  RANDOM MEDIUM ($D=1,2,3$)

Cecile Monthus and Thomas Garel

We consider a directed polymer of length $L$ in a random medium of space
dimension $d=1,2,3$. The statistics of low energy excitations as a  
function of
their size $l$ is numerically evaluated. These excitations can be  
divided into
bulk and boundary excitations, with respective densities $\rho^{bulk} 
_L(E=0,l)$
and $\rho^{boundary}_L(E=0,l)$. We find that both densities follow  
the scaling
behavior $\rho^{bulk,boundary}_L(E=0,l) = L^{-1-\theta_d}
R^{bulk,boundary}(x=l/L)$, where $\theta_d$ is the exponent governing  
the
energy fluctuations at zero temperature (with the well-known exact value
$\theta_1=1/3$ in one dimension). In the limit $x=l/L \to 0$, both  
scaling
functions $R^{bulk}(x)$ and $R^{boundary}(x)$ behave as $R^ 
{bulk,boundary}(x)
\sim x^{-1-\theta_d}$, leading to the droplet power law
$\rho^{bulk,boundary}_L(E=0,l)\sim l^{-1-\theta_d} $ in the regime $1  
\ll l \ll
L$. Beyond their common singularity near $x \to 0$, the two scaling  
functions
$R^{bulk,boundary}(x)$ are very different : whereas $R^{bulk}(x)$ decays
monotonically for $0<x<1$, the function $R^{boundary}(x)$ first  
decays for
$0<x<x_{min}$, then grows for $x_{min}<x<1$, and finally presents a  
power law
singularity $R^{boundary}(x)\sim (1-x)^{-\sigma_d}$ near $x \to 1$.  
The density
of excitations of length $l=L$ accordingly decays as
$\rho^{boundary}_L(E=0,l=L)\sim L^{- \lambda_d} $ where
$\lambda_d=1+\theta_d-\sigma_d$. We obtain $\lambda_1 \simeq 0.67$, $ 
\lambda_2
\simeq 0.53$ and $\lambda_3 \simeq 0.39$, suggesting the possible  
relation
$\lambda_d= 2 \theta_d$.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0602200

---------------------------------------------------------------

5497. RANDOM POLYMERS AND DELOCALIZATION TRANSITIONS

Cecile Monthus and Thomas Garel

In these proceedings, we first summarize some general properties of  
phase
transitions in the presence of quenched disorder, with emphasis on the
following points: the need to distinguish typical and averaged  
correlations,
the possible existence of two correlation length exponents $\nu$, the  
general
bound $\nu_{FS} \geq 2/d$, the lack of self-averaging of thermodynamic
observables at criticality, the scaling properties of the  
distribution of
pseudo-critical temperatures $T_c(i,L)$ over the ensemble of samples  
of size
$L$. We then review our recent works on the critical properties of  
various
delocalization transitions involving random polymers, namely (i) the
bidimensional wetting (ii) the Poland-Scheraga model of DNA  
denaturation (iii)
the depinning transition of the selective interface model (iv) the  
freezing
transition of the directed polymer in a random medium.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0605448

---------------------------------------------------------------

5498. NUMERICAL STUDY OF THE DIRECTED POLYMER IN A 1+3 DIMENSIONAL  
RANDOM  MEDIUM

Cecile Monthus and  Thomas Garel

The directed polymer in a 1+3 dimensional random medium is known to  
present a
disorder-induced phase transition. For a polymer of length $L$, the high
temperature phase is characterized by a diffusive behavior for the  
end-point
displacement $R^2 \sim L$ and by free-energy fluctuations of order $ 
\Delta F(L)
\sim O(1)$. The low-temperature phase is characterized by an anomalous
wandering exponent $R^2/L \sim L^{\omega}$ and by free-energy  
fluctuations of
order $\Delta F(L) \sim L^{\omega}$ where $\omega \sim 0.18$. In this  
paper, we
first study the scaling behavior of various properties to localize  
the critical
temperature $T_c$. Our results concerning $R^2/L$ and $\Delta F(L)$  
point
towards $0.76 < T_c \leq T_2=0.79$, so our conclusion is that $T_c$  
is equal or
very close to the upper bound $T_2$ derived by Derrida and coworkers  
($T_2$
corresponds to the temperature above which the ratio
$\bar{Z_L^2}/(\bar{Z_L})^2$ remains finite as $L \to \infty$). We  
then present
histograms for the free-energy, energy and entropy over disorder  
samples. For
$T \gg T_c$, the free-energy distribution is found to be Gaussian.  
For $T \ll
T_c$, the free-energy distribution coincides with the ground state  
energy
distribution, in agreement with the zero-temperature fixed point  
picture.
Moreover the entropy fluctuations are of order $\Delta S \sim L^{1/2} 
$ and
follow a Gaussian distribution, in agreement with the droplet  
predictions,
where the free-energy term $\Delta F \sim L^{\omega}$ is a near  
cancellation of
energy and entropy contributions of order $L^{1/2}$.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0606132

---------------------------------------------------------------

5499. PROBING THE TAILS OF THE GROUND STATE ENERGY DISTRIBUTION FOR  
THE  DIRECTED POLYMER IN A RANDOM MEDIUM OF DIMENSION $D=1,2,3$ VIA A  
MONTE-CARLO
   PROCEDURE IN THE DISORDER

Cecile Monthus and Thomas Garel

In order to probe with high precision the tails of the ground-state  
energy
distribution of disordered spin systems, K\"orner, Katzgraber and  
Hartmann
\cite{Ko_Ka_Ha} have recently proposed an importance-sampling Monte- 
Carlo
Markov chain in the disorder. In this paper, we combine their Monte- 
Carlo
procedure in the disorder with exact transfer matrix calculations in  
each
sample to measure the negative tail of ground state energy distribution
$P_d(E_0)$ for the directed polymer in a random medium of dimension  
$d=1,2,3$.
In $d=1$, we check the validity of the algorithm by a direct  
comparison with
the exact result, namely the Tracy-Widom distribution. In dimensions  
$d=2$ and
$d=3$, we measure the negative tail up to ten standard deviations, which
correspond to probabilities of order $P_d(E_0) \sim 10^{-22}$. Our  
results are
in agreement with Zhang's argument, stating that the negative tail  
exponent
$\eta(d)$ of the asymptotic behavior $\ln P_d (E_0) \sim - | E_0 |^ 
{\eta(d)}$
as $E_0 \to -\infty$ is directly related to the fluctuation exponent
$\theta(d)$ (which governs the fluctuations $\Delta E_0(L) \sim L^ 
{\theta(d)}$
of the ground state energy $E_0$ for polymers of length $L$) via the  
simple
formula $\eta(d)=1/(1-\theta(d))$. Along the paper, we comment on the
similarities and differences with spin-glasses.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0607411

---------------------------------------------------------------

5500. FREEZING TRANSITION OF THE RANDOM BOND RNA MODEL: STATISTICAL  
PROPERTIES  OF THE PAIRING WEIGHTS

Cecile Monthus and Thomas Garel

To characterize the pairing-specificity of RNA secondary structures as a
function of temperature, we analyse the statistics of the pairing  
weights as
follows : for each base $(i)$ of the sequence of length N, we  
consider the
$(N-1)$ pairing weights $w_i(j)$ with the other bases $(j \neq i)$ of  
the
sequence. We numerically compute the probability distributions $P_1(w) 
$ of the
maximal weight, the probability distribution $\Pi(Y_2)$ of the parameter
$Y_2(i)= \sum_j w_i^2(j)$, as well as the average values of the moments
$Y_k(i)= \sum_j w_i^k(j)$. We find that there are two important  
temperatures
$T_c<T_{gap}$. For $T>T_{gap}$, the distribution $P_1(w)$ vanishes at  
some
value $w_0(T)<1$, and accordingly the moments $\bar{Y_k(i)}$ decay
exponentially in $k$. For $T<T_{gap}$, the distributions $P_1(w)$ and
$\Pi(Y_2)$ present the characteristic Derrida-Flyvbjerg singularities at
$w,Y_2=1/n$ for $n=1,2..$. In particular, there exists a temperature- 
dependent
exponent $\mu(T)$ that governs these singularities and the decay of  
the moments
$ \bar{Y_k(i)} \sim 1/k^{\mu(T)}$. The exponent $\mu(T)$ grows from
$\mu(T=0)=0$ up to $\mu(T_{gap}) \sim 2$. The study of spatial  
properties
indicates that the critical temperature $T_c$ where the roughness  
exponent
changes from the low temperature value $\zeta \sim 0.67$ to the high
temperature value $\zeta \sim 0.5$ corresponds to the exponent $\mu 
(T_c)=1$.
For $T<T_c$, there exists frozen pairs of all sizes, whereas for $T_c< T
<T_{gap}$, there exists frozen pairs, but only up to some  
characteristic length
diverging as $\xi(T) \sim 1/(T_c-T)^{\nu}$ with $\nu \simeq 2$. The
similarities and differences with the weight statistics in L\'evy  
sums and in
Derrida's Random Energy Model are discussed.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0611611

---------------------------------------------------------------

5501. DIRECTED POLYMER IN A RANDOM MEDIUM OF DIMENSION 1+3 :  
MULTIFRACTAL  PROPERTIES AT THE LOCALIZATION/DELOCALIZATION TRANSITION

Cecile Monthus and Thomas Garel

We consider the model of the directed polymer in a random medium of  
dimension
1+3, and investigate its multifractal properties at the
localization/delocalization transition. In close analogy with models  
of the
quantum Anderson localization transition, where the multifractality  
of critical
wavefunctions is well established, we analyse the statistics of the  
position
weights $w_L(\vec r)$ of the end-point of the polymer of length $L$  
via the
moments $Y_q(L) = \sum_{\vec r} [w_L(\vec r)]^q$. We measure the  
generalized
exponents $\tau(q)$ and $\tilde \tau(q)$ governing the decay of the  
typical
values $Y^{typ}_q(L) = e^{\bar{\ln Y_q(L)}} \sim L^{- \tau(q)} $ and
disorder-averaged values $\bar{Y_q(L)} \sim L^{- \tilde \tau(q)} $
respectively. To understand the difference between these exponents, $  
\tau(q)
\neq \tilde \tau(q)$ above some threshold $q>q_c \sim 2$, we compute the
probability distributions of $y=Y_q(L)/Y^{typ}_q(L) $ over the  
samples : we
find that these distributions becomes scale invariant with a power- 
law tail
$1/y^{1+x_q}$. These results thus correspond to the Ever-Mirlin  
scenario [Phys.
Rev. Lett. 84, 3690 (2000)] for the statistics of Inverse  
Participation Ratios
at the Anderson localization transitions. Finally, the finite-size  
scaling
analysis in the critical region yields the correlation length  
exponent $\nu
\sim 2$.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0701699

---------------------------------------------------------------

5502. DIRECTED POLYMER IN A RANDOM MEDIUM OF DIMENSION 1+1 AND 1+3:  
WEIGHTS  STATISTICS IN THE LOW-TEMPERATURE PHASE

Cecile Monthus and Thomas Garel

We consider the low-temperature $T<T_c$ disorder-dominated phase of the
directed polymer in a random potentiel in dimension 1+1 (where $T_c= 
\infty$)
and 1+3 (where $T_c<\infty$). To characterize the localization  
properties of
the polymer of length $L$, we analyse the statistics of the weights  
$w_L(\vec
r)$ of the last monomer as follows. We numerically compute the  
probability
distributions $P_1(w)$ of the maximal weight $w_L^{max}= max_{\vec r}  
[w_L(\vec
r)]$, the probability distribution $\Pi(Y_2)$ of the parameter $Y_2(L)=
\sum_{\vec r} w_L^2(\vec r) $ as well as the average values of the  
higher order
moments $Y_k(L)= \sum_{\vec r} w_L^k(\vec r)$. We find that there  
exists a
temperature $T_{gap}<T_c$ such that (i) for $T<T_{gap}$, the  
distributions
$P_1(w)$ and $\Pi(Y_2)$ present the characteristic Derrida-Flyvbjerg
singularities at $w=1/n$ and $Y_2=1/n$ for $n=1,2..$. In particular,  
there
exists a temperature-dependent exponent $\mu(T)$ that governs the main
singularities $P_1(w) \sim (1-w)^{\mu(T)-1}$ and $\Pi(Y_2) \sim
(1-Y_2)^{\mu(T)-1}$ as well as the power-law decay of the moments $
\bar{Y_k(i)} \sim 1/k^{\mu(T)}$. The exponent $\mu(T)$ grows from the  
value
$\mu(T=0)=0$ up to $\mu(T_{gap}) \sim 2$. (ii) for $T_{gap}<T<T_c$, the
distribution $P_1(w)$ vanishes at some value $w_0(T)<1$, and  
accordingly the
moments $\bar{Y_k(i)}$ decay exponentially as $(w_0(T))^k$ in $k$. The
histograms of spatial correlations also display Derrida-Flyvbjerg  
singularities
for $T<T_{gap}$. Both below and above $T_{gap}$, the study of typical  
and
averaged correlations is in full agreement with the droplet scaling  
theory.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0702131

---------------------------------------------------------------

5503. ON THE CRITICAL WEIGHT STATISTICS OF THE RANDOM ENERGY MODEL  
AND OF THE  DIRECTED POLYMER ON THE CAYLEY TREE

Cecile Monthus and Thomas Garel

We consider the critical point of two mean-field disordered models :  
(i) the
Random Energy Model (REM), introduced by Derrida as a mean-field spin- 
glass
model of $N$ spins (ii) the Directed Polymer of length $N$ on a  
Cayley Tree
(DPCT) with random bond energies. Both models are known to exhibit a  
freezing
transition between a high temperature phase where the entropy is  
extensive and
a low-temperature phase of finite entropy. In this paper, we study  
the weight
statistics at criticality via the entropy $S=-\sum w_i \ln w_i$ and the
generalized moments $Y_k=\sum w_i^k$, where the $w_i$ are the  
Boltzmann weights
of the $2^N$ configurations. In the REM, we find that the critical  
weight
statistics is governed by the finite-size exponent $\nu=2$ : the  
entropy scales
as $\bar{S}_N(T_c) \sim N^{1/2}$, the typical values $e^{\bar{\ln  
Y_k}}$ decay
as $N^{-k/2}$, and the disorder-averaged values $\bar{Y_k}$ are  
governed by
rare events and decay as $N^{-1/2}$ for any $k>1$. For the DPCT, we  
find that
the entropy scales similarly as $\bar{S}_N(T_c) \sim N^{1/2}$,  
whereas another
exponent $\nu'=1$ governs the $Y_k$ statistics : the typical values
$e^{\bar{\ln Y_k}}$ decay as $N^{-k}$, the disorder-averaged values $ 
\bar{Y_k}$
decay as $N^{-1}$ for any $k>1$. As a consequence, the asymptotic  
probability
distribution $\bar{\pi}_{N=\infty}(q)$ of the overlap $q$, beside the  
delta
function $\delta(q)$ which bears the whole normalization, contains an  
isolated
point at $q=1$, as a memory of the delta peak $(1-T/T_c) \delta(q-1)$  
of the
low-temperature phase $T<T_c$. The associated value $\bar{\pi}_{N= 
\infty}(q=1)$
is finite for the DPCT, and diverges as $\bar{\pi}_{N=\infty}(q=1) \sim
N^{1/2}$ for the REM.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0703017

---------------------------------------------------------------

5504. AN ISOPERIMETRIC INEQUALITY FOR UNIFORMLY LOG-CONCAVE MEASURES  
AND  UNIFORMLY CONVEX BODIES

Emanuel Milman and Sasha Sodin

We prove an isoperimetric inequality for uniformly log-concave  
measures and
for the uniform measure on a uniformly convex body. These  
inequalities imply
the log-Sobolev inequalities proved by Bobkov and Ledoux and Bobkov and
Zegarlinski. We also recover a concentration inequality for uniformly  
convex
bodies, similar to that proved by Gromov and Milman.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703857

---------------------------------------------------------------

5505. LONG RANGE PERCOLATION MIXING TIME

Itai Benjamini and  Noam Berger and  Ariel Yadin

We provide an estimate, sharp up to poly-logarithmic factors, of the
asymptotically almost sure mixing time of the graph created by long- 
range
percolation on the cycle of length N (Z/NZ). While it is known that  
the almost
sure diameter drops from linear to poly-logarithmic as the exponent s  
decreases
below 2, the almost sure mixing time drops from N^2 only to N^(s-1)  
(up to
poly-logarithmic factors).


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703872

---------------------------------------------------------------

5506. COALESCENT PROCESSES ARISING IN A STUDY OF DIFFUSIVE CLUSTERING

Andreas Greven and  Vlada Limic and Anita Winter

This paper studies spatial coalescents on $\Z^2$. In our setting, the
partition elements are located at the sites of $\Z^2$ and undergo  
local delayed
coalescence and migration. The system starts in either locally finite
configurations or in configurations containing countably many partition
elements per site.
   Our goal is to determine the longtime behavior with an initial  
population of
countably many individuals per site restricted to a box $[-t^{\alpha/2},
t^{\alpha/2}]^2 \cap \Z^2$ and observed at time $t^\beta$ with $1  
\geq \beta
\geq \alpha\ge 0$. We study both asymptotics, as $t\to\infty$, for a  
fixed
value of $\alpha$ as the parameter $\beta\in[\alpha,1]$ varies, and  
for a fixed
$\beta=1$, as the parameter $\alpha\in [0,1]$ varies.
   A new random object, the so-called {\em coalescent with rebirth}, is
constructed and shown to arise in the limit. In view of future  
applications we
introduce the spatial coalescent with rebirth and study its longtime
asymptotics as well. The present paper is the basis for forthcoming  
work, where
the genealogies in interacting Moran models and Fisher-Wright  
diffusions on
$\Z^2$ are studied. There the coalescent with rebirth is needed to  
describe the
``complete'' genealogical forests, i.e., the genealogical structures  
which
include also the ``fossils''.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703875

---------------------------------------------------------------

5507. ON BOUNDED SOLUTIONS OF THE BALANCED GENERALIZED PANTOGRAPH  
EQUATION

Leonid Bogachev and  Gregory Derfel and  Stanislav Molchanov and  and  
John  Ockendon

The question about the existence and characterization of bounded  
solutions to
linear functional-differential equations with both advanced and delayed
arguments was posed in early 1970s by T. Kato in connection with the  
analysis
of the pantograph equation, y'(x)=ay(qx)+by(x). In the present paper,  
we answer
this question for the balanced generalized pantograph equation of the  
form -a_2
y''(x)+a_1 y'(x)+y(x)=int_0^infty y(qx) m(dq), where a_1 > or = 0,  
a_2 > or =
0, a_1^2+a_2^2>0, and m is a probability measure. Namely, setting
K:=int_0^infty ln(q) m(dq), we prove that if K < or = 0 then the  
equation does
not have nontrivial (i.e., nonconstant) bounded solutions, while if  
K>0 then
such a solution exists. The result in the critical case, K=0, settles a
long-standing problem. The proof exploits the link with the theory of  
Markov
processes, in that any solution of the balanced pantograph equation  
is an
L-harmonic function relative to the generator L of a certain  
diffusion process
with "multiplication" jumps. The paper also includes three  
"elementary" proofs
for the simple prototype equation y'(x)+y(x)=(1/2)y(qx)+(1/2)y(x/q),  
based on
perturbation, analytical, and probabilistic techniques, respectively,  
which may
appear useful in other situations as efficient exploratory tools.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703897

---------------------------------------------------------------

5508. ELECTRIC CURRENTS IN INFINITE NETWORKS

Peter G. Doyle

In this survey, we present the basic facts about conduction in infinite
networks. This survey is based on the work of Flanders, Zemanian, and
Thomassen, who developed the theory of infinite networks from  
scratch. Here we
show how to get a more complete theory by paralleling the well- 
developed theory
of conduction on open Riemann surfaces. Like Flanders and Thomassen,  
we take as
a test case for the theory the problem of determining the resistance  
across an
edge of a d-dimensional grid of 1-ohm resistors.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703899

---------------------------------------------------------------

5509. PARAMETRIC ESTIMATION FOR PLANAR RANDOM FLIGHTS OBSERVED AT  
DISCRETE  TIMES

Alessandro De Gregorio

We deal with a planar random flight $\{(X(t),Y(t)),0<t\leq T\}$  
observed at
$n+1$ equidistant times $t_i=i\Delta_n,i=0,1,...,n$. The aim of this  
paper is
to estimate the unknown value of the parameter $\lambda$, the  
underlying rate
of the Poisson process. The planar random flights are not markovian,  
then we
use an alternative argument to derive a pseudo-maximum likelihood  
estimator
$\hat{\lambda}$ of the parameter $\lambda$. We consider two different  
types of
asymptotic schemes and show the consistency, the asymptotic normality  
and
efficiency of the estimator proposed. A Monte Carlo analysis for  
small sample
size $n$ permits us to analyze the empirical performance of $\hat 
{\lambda}$.
   A different approach permits us to introduce an alternative  
estimator of
$\lambda$ which is consistent, asymptotically normal and asymptotically
efficient without the request of other assumptions.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703887

---------------------------------------------------------------

5510. OPTIMAL DEFERRED LIFE ANNUITIES TO MINIMIZE THE PROBABILITY OF  
LIFETIME  RUIN

Erhan Bayraktar and  Virginia R. Young

We find the minimum probability of lifetime ruin of an investor who can
invest in a market with a risky and a riskless asset and can purchase a
deferred annuity. Although we let the admissible set of strategies of  
annuity
purchasing process to be increasing adapted processes, we find that the
individual will not buy a deferred life annuity unless she can cover  
all her
consumption via the annuity and have enough wealth left over to  
sustain her
until the end of the deferral period.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703862

---------------------------------------------------------------

5511. THE BIHAM-MIDDLETON-LEVINE TRAFFIC MODEL FOR A SINGLE JUNCTION

Itai Benjamini and  Ori Gurel-Gurevich and  Roey Izkovsky

In the Biham-Middleton-Levine traffic model cars are placed in some  
density p
on a two dimensional torus, and move according to a (simple) set of  
predefined
rules. Computer simulations show this system exhibits many interesting
phenomena: for low densities the system self organizes such that cars  
flow
freely while for densities higher than some critical density the  
system gets
stuck in an endless traffic jam. However, apart from the simulation  
results
very few properties of the system were proven rigorously to date. We  
introduce
a simplified version of this model in which cars are placed in a  
single row and
column (a junction) and show that similar phenomena of self- 
organization of the
system and phase transition still occur.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703201

---------------------------------------------------------------

5512. STABILITY IN RANDOM BOOLEAN CELLULAR AUTOMATA ON THE INTEGER  
LATTICE

F.M.Dekking and L. van Driel

We consider random boolean cellular automata on the integer lattice,  
i.e.,
the cells are identified with the integers from 1 to $N$. The  
behaviour of the
automaton is mainly determined by the support of the random variable  
that
selects one of the sixteen possible Boolean rules, independently for  
each cell.
A cell is said to stabilize if it will not change its state anymore  
after some
time. We classify the random boolean automata according to the  
positivity of
their probability of stabilization. Here is an example of a  
consequence of our
results: if the support contains at least 5 rules, then  
asymptotically as $N$
tends to infinity the probability of stabilization is positive,  
whereas there
exist random boolean cellular automata with 4 rules in their support  
for which
this probability tends to 0.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.2183

---------------------------------------------------------------

5513. FACTOR ANALYSIS AND ALTERNATING MINIMIZATION

Lorenzo Finesso and Peter Spreij

In this paper we make a first attempt at understanding how to build an
optimal approximate normal factor analysis model. The criterion we  
have chosen
to evaluate the distance between different models is the I-divergence  
between
the corresponding normal laws. The algorithm that we propose for the
construction of the best approximation is of an the alternating  
minimization
kind.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.2208

---------------------------------------------------------------

5514. ON THE COMPUTATIONAL COMPLEXITY OF MCMC-BASED ESTIMATORS IN  
LARGE  SAMPLES

Alexandre Belloni and Victor Chernozhukov

In this paper we examine the implications of the statistical large  
sample
theory for the computational complexity of Bayesian and quasi-Bayesian
estimation carried out using Metropolis random walks. Our analysis is  
motivated
by the Laplace-Bernstein-Von Mises central limit theorem, which  
states that in
large samples the posterior or quasi-posterior approaches a normal  
density.
Using this observation, we establish polynomial bounds on the  
computational
complexity of general Metropolis random walks methods in large  
samples. Our
analysis covers cases, where the underlying log-likelihood or extremum
criterion function is possibly non-concave, discontinuous, and of  
increasing
dimension. However, the central limit theorem restricts the  
deviations from
continuity and log-concavity of the log-likelihood or extremum criterion
function in a very specific manner. Under minimal assumptions for the  
central
limit theorem framework to hold, we show that the Metropolis  
algorithm is
theoretically efficient even for the canonical Gaussian walk which is  
studied
in detail. Specifically, we show that the running time of the  
algorithm in
large samples is bounded in probability by a polynomial in the parameter
dimension d, and, in particular, is of stochastic order d^2 in the  
leading
cases after the burn-in period. We then give an application to  
exponential and
curved exponential families of increasing dimension.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.2167

---------------------------------------------------------------

5515. PROBABILIT\'ES ET FLUCTUATIONS QUANTIQUES (PROBABILITIES AND  
QUANTUM  FLUCTUATIONS)

Michel Fliess (LIX and  Inria Futurs)

This note is sketching a simple and natural mathematical construction  
for
explaining the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics. It employs
nonstandard analysis and is based on Feynman's interpretation of the  
Heisenberg
uncertainty principle, i.e., of the quantum fluctuations, which was  
brought to
the forefront in some fractal approaches. It results, as in Nelson's  
stochastic
mechanics, in stochastic differential equations which are deduced from
infinitesimal random walks. An extended english abstract gives most  
of the
details.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.2019

---------------------------------------------------------------

5516. NEIGHBORING CLUSTERS IN BERNOULLI PERCOLATION

Ad\'{a}m Tim\'{a}r

We consider Bernoulli percolation on a locally finite quasi-transitive
unimodular graph and prove that two infinite clusters cannot have  
infinitely
many pairs of vertices at distance 1 from one another or, in other  
words, that
such graphs exhibit ``cluster repulsion.'' This partially answers a  
question of
H\"{a}ggstr\"{o}m, Peres and Schonmann.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0702873

---------------------------------------------------------------

5517. PERCOLATION ON NONUNIMODULAR TRANSITIVE GRAPHS

\'{A}d\'{a}m Tim\'{a}r

We extend some of the fundamental results about percolation on  
unimodular
nonamenable graphs to nonunimodular graphs. We show that they cannot  
have
infinitely many infinite clusters at critical Bernoulli percolation.  
In the
case of heavy clusters, this result has already been established, but  
it also
follows from one of our results. We give a general necessary  
condition for
nonunimodular graphs to have a phase with infinitely many heavy  
clusters. We
present an invariant spanning tree with $p_c=1$ on some nonunimodular  
graph.
Such trees cannot exist for nonamenable unimodular graphs. We show a  
new way of
constructing nonunimodular graphs that have properties more peculiar  
than the
ones previously known.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0702875

---------------------------------------------------------------

5518. LOWER BOUNDS FOR THE DENSITY OF LOCALLY ELLIPTIC IT\^{O} PROCESSES

Vlad Bally

We give lower bounds for the density $p_T(x,y)$ of the law of $X_t$, the
solution of $dX_t=\sigma (X_t) dB_t+b(X_t) dt,X_0=x,$ under the  
following local
ellipticity hypothesis: there exists a deterministic differentiable  
curve $x_t,
0\leq t\leq T$, such that $x_0=x, x_T=y$ and $\sigma \sigma ^*(x_t)>0, 
$ for all
$t\in \lbrack 0,T].$ The lower bound is expressed in terms of a distance
related to the skeleton of the diffusion process. This distance  
appears when we
optimize over all the curves which verify the above ellipticity  
assumption. The
arguments which lead to the above result work in a general context which
includes a large class of Wiener functionals, for example, It\^{o}  
processes.
Our starting point is work of Kohatsu-Higa which presents a general  
framework
including stochastic PDE's.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0702879

---------------------------------------------------------------

5519. WAITING FOR REGULATORY SEQUENCES TO APPEAR

Richard Durrett and  Deena Schmidt

One possible explanation for the substantial organismal differences  
between
humans and chimpanzees is that there have been changes in gene  
regulation.
Given what is known about transcription factor binding sites, this  
motivates
the following probability question: given a 1000 nucleotide region in  
our
genome, how long does it take for a specified six to nine letter word  
to appear
in that region in some individual? Stone and Wray [Mol. Biol. Evol.  
18 (2001)
1764--1770] computed 5,950 years as the answer for six letter words.  
Here, we
will show that for words of length 6, the average waiting time is  
100,000
years, while for words of length 8, the waiting time has mean 375,000  
years
when there is a 7 out of 8 letter match in the population consensus  
sequence
(an event of probability roughly 5/16) and has mean 650 million years  
when
there is not. Fortunately, in biological reality, the match to the  
target word
does not have to be perfect for binding to occur. If we model this by  
saying
that a 7 out of 8 letter match is good enough, the mean reduces to  
about 60,000
years.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0702883

---------------------------------------------------------------

5520. INTEGRATION BY PARTS FORMULA FOR LOCALLY SMOOTH LAWS AND  
APPLICATIONS TO  SENSITIVITY COMPUTATIONS

Vlad Bally and  Marie-Pierre Bavouzet and  Marouen Messaoud

We consider random variables of the form $F=f(V_1,...,V_n)$, where $f 
$ is a
smooth function and $V_i,i\in\mathbb{N}$, are random variables with  
absolutely
continuous law $p_i(y) dy$. We assume that $p_i$, $i=1,...,n$, are  
piecewise
differentiable and we develop a differential calculus of Malliavin  
type based
on $\partial\ln p_i$. This allows us to establish an integration by  
parts
formula $E(\partial_i\phi(F)G)=E(\phi(F)H_i(F,G))$, where $H_i(F,G)$  
is a
random variable constructed using the differential operators acting  
on $F$ and
$G.$ We use this formula in order to give numerical algorithms for  
sensitivity
computations in a model driven by a L\'{e}vy process.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0702884

---------------------------------------------------------------

5521. A FLEMING--VIOT PROCESS AND BAYESIAN NONPARAMETRICS

Stephen G. Walker and  Spyridon J. Hatjispyros and  Theodoros Nicoleris

This paper provides a construction of a Fleming--Viot measure valued
diffusion process, for which the transition function is known, by  
extending
recent ideas of the Gibbs sampler based Markov processes. In  
particular, we
concentrate on the Chapman--Kolmogorov consistency conditions which  
allows a
simple derivation of such a Fleming--Viot process, once a key and  
apparently
new combinatorial result for P\'{o}lya-urn sequences has been  
established.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0702885

---------------------------------------------------------------

5522. ON THE SIGNAL-TO-INTERFERENCE RATIO OF CDMA SYSTEMS IN  
WIRELESS  COMMUNICATIONS

Z. D. Bai and  Jack W. Silverstein

Let $\{s_{ij}:i,j=1,2,...\}$ consist of i.i.d. random variables in
$\mathbb{C}$ with $\mathsf{E}s_{11}=0$, $\mathsf{E}|s_{11}|^2=1$. For  
each
positive integer $N$, let
$\mathbf{s}_k={\mathbf{s}}_k(N)=(s_{1k},s_{2k},...,s_{Nk})^T$, $1\leq  
k\leq K$,
with $K=K(N)$ and $K/N\to c>0$ as $N\to\infty$. Assume for fixed  
positive
integer $L$, for each $N$ and $k\leq K$,
${\bolds\alpha}_k=(\alpha_k(1),...,\alpha_k(L))^T$ is random,  
independent of
the $s_{ij}$, and the empirical distribution of $(\alpha_1,..., 
\alpha_K)$, with
probability one converging weakly to a probability distribution $H$ on
$\mathbb{C}^L$. Let ${\bolds\beta
}_k={\bolds\beta}_k(N)=(\alpha_k(1)\mathbf{s}_k^T,...,\alpha_k(L)\m
athbf{s}_k^T)^T$ and set $C=C(N)=(1/N)\sum_{k=2}^K{\bolds \beta}_k 
{\bolds
\beta}_k^*$. Let $\sigma^2>0$ be arbitrary. Then define
$SIR_1=(1/N){\bolds\beta}^*_1(C+\sigma^2I)^{-1}{\bolds\beta}_1$, which
represents the best signal-to-interference ratio for user 1 with  
respect to the
other $K-1$ users in a direct-sequence code-division multiple-access  
system in
wireless communications. In this paper it is proven that, with  
probability 1,
$SIR_1$ tends, as $N\to\infty$, to the limit
$\sum_{\ell,\ell'=1}^L\bar{\alpha}_1(\ell) alpha_1(\ell')a_{\ell, 
\ell'},$ where
$A=(a_{\ell,\ell'})$ is nonrandom, Hermitian positive definite, and  
is the
unique matrix of such type satisfying $A=\bigl(c
\mathsf{E}\frac{{\bolds\alpha}{\bolds
\alpha}^*}{1+{\bolds\alpha}^*A{\bolds\alpha}}+\sigma^2I_L\bigr)^{-1} 
$, where
${\bolds\alpha}\in \mathbb{C}^L$ has distribution $H$. The result  
generalizes
those previously derived under more restricted assumptions.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0702888

---------------------------------------------------------------

5523. ON THE OPTIMAL DIVIDEND PROBLEM FOR A SPECTRALLY NEGATIVE L\'{E} 
VY  PROCESS

Florin Avram and  Zbigniew Palmowski and  Martijn R. Pistorius

In this paper we consider the optimal dividend problem for an insurance
company whose risk process evolves as a spectrally negative L\'{e}vy  
process in
the absence of dividend payments. The classical dividend problem for an
insurance company consists in finding a dividend payment policy that  
maximizes
the total expected discounted dividends. Related is the problem where  
we impose
the restriction that ruin be prevented: the beneficiaries of the  
dividends must
then keep the insurance company solvent by bail-out loans. Drawing on  
the
fluctuation theory of spectrally negative L\'{e}vy processes we give an
explicit analytical description of the optimal strategy in the set of  
barrier
strategies and the corresponding value function, for either of the  
problems.
Subsequently we investigate when the dividend policy that is optimal  
among all
admissible ones takes the form of a barrier strategy.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0702893

---------------------------------------------------------------

5524. RETRIEVING CONVEX BODIES FROM RESTRICTED COVARIOGRAM FUNCTIONS

Gennadiy Averkov (University of Magdeburg) and  Gabriele Bianchi   
(Universita` di Firenze)

The covariogram g_K(x) of a convex body K \subseteq E^d is the  
function which
associates to each x \in E^d the volume of the intersection of K with  
K+x.
Matheron asked whether g_K determines K, up to translations and  
reflections in
a point. Positive answers to Matheron's question have been obtained  
for large
classes of planar convex bodies, while for d\geq 3 there are both  
positive and
negative results.
   One of the purposes of this paper is to sharpen some of the known  
results on
Matheron's conjecture indicating how much of the covariogram  
information is
needed to get the uniqueness of determination. We indicate some  
subsets of the
support of the covariogram, with arbitrarily small Lebesgue measure,  
such that
the covariogram, restricted to those subsets, identifies certain  
geometric
properties of the body. These results are more precise in the planar  
case, but
some of them, both positive and negative ones, are proved for bodies  
of any
dimension. Moreover some results regard most convex bodies, in the Baire
category sense. Another purpose is to extend the class of convex  
bodies for
which Matheron's conjecture is confirmed by including all planar  
convex bodies
possessing two non-degenerate boundary arcs being reflections of each  
other.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0702892

---------------------------------------------------------------

5525. GAUSSIAN FLUCTUATIONS FOR \BETA ENSEMBLES

Rowan Killip

We study the Circular and Jacobi $\beta$-Ensembles and prove Gaussian
fluctuations for the number of points in one or more intervals in the
macroscopic scaling limit.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703140

---------------------------------------------------------------

5526. FRONT PROPAGATION IN AN EXCLUSION ONE-DIMENSIONAL REACTIVE  
DYNAMICS

Milton Jara and  Gregorio Moreno and Alejandro F. Ramirez

We consider an exclusion process representing a reactive dynamics of  
a pulled
front on the integer lattice, describing the dynamics of first class $X$
particles moving as a simple symmetric exclusion process, and static  
second
class $Y$ particles. When an $X$ particle jumps to a site with a $Y$  
particle,
their position is intechanged and the $Y$ particle becomes an $X$ one.
Initially, there is an arbitrary configuration of $X$ particles at  
sites $...,
-1,0$, and $Y$ particles only at sites $1,2,...$, with a product  
Bernoulli law
of parameter $\rho,0<\rho<1$. We prove a law of large numbers and a  
central
limit theorem for the front defined by the right-most visited site of  
the $X$
particles at time $t$. These results corroborate Monte-Carlo simulations
performed in a similar context. We also prove that the law of the $X$  
particles
as seen from the front converges to a unique invariant measure. The  
proofs use
regeneration times: we present a direct way to define them within  
this context.


  http://arXiv.org/abs/math/0703173

---------------------------------------------------------------

5527. SCALING LIMIT FOR A CLASS OF GRADIENT FIELDS WITH NON-CONVEX  
POTENTIALS

Marek Biskup and  Herbert Spohn

We consider gradient fields $(\phi_x\colon x\in\Z^d)$ whose law takes  
the
Gibbs-Boltzmann form $Z^{-1}\exp\{-\sum_{< x,y>}V(\phi_y-\phi_x)\}$  
where the
sum runs over nearest neighbors. We assume that $V$ admits the  
representation
$$ V(\eta)= - \log\int\varrho(\textd\kappa) \exp
\bigl[-\tfrac{1}{2}\kappa\eta^2\bigr] $$ where $\varrho$ is a  
positive measure
with compact support in $(0,\infty)$. Hence $V$ is symmetric and non- 
convex in
general. While for strictly convex $V$'s the translation-invariant,  
ergodic
gradient Gibbs measures are completely characterized by their tilt, a
non-convex potential as above may lead to several ergodic gradient Gibbs
measures with zero tilt. Still, every ergodic, zero-tilt gradient  
Gibbs measure
for the potential $V$ from above scales to a Gaussian free field.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.3086

---------------------------------------------------------------

5528. THE CONTOUR OF SPLITTING TREES IS A L\'EVY PROCESS

Amaury Lambert (FESE)

Splitting trees are those random trees where individuals give birth at
constant rate during a lifetime with general distribution, to i.i.d.  
copies of
themselves. The width process of a splitting tree is then a binary,  
homogeneous
Crump--Mode--Jagers (CMJ) process, and is not Markovian unless the  
lifetime
distribution is exponential. Here, we allow the birth rate to be  
infinite, that
is, pairs of birth times and lifespans of newborns form a Poisson  
point process
along the lifetime of their mother, with possibly infinite intensity  
measure. A
splitting tree is a random (so-called) chronological tree. Each  
element of a
chronological tree is a (so-called) existence point $(v,\tau)$ of some
individual $v$ (vertex) in a discrete tree, where $\tau$ is a  
nonnegative real
number called chronological level (time). We introduce a total order on
existence points, called linear order, and a mapping $\phi$ from the  
tree into
the real line which preserves this order. The inverse of $\phi$ is  
called the
exploration process, and the projection of this inverse on  
chronological levels
the contour process. For splitting trees truncated up to level $\tau 
$, we prove
that thus defined contour process is a L\'evy process reflected below  
$\tau$
and killed upon hitting 0. This allows to derive properties of (i)  
splitting
trees: conceptual proof of Le Gall--Le Jan's theorem in the finite  
variation
case, exceptional points, coalescent point process, age distribution;  
(ii) CMJ
processes: one-dimensional marginals, conditionings, limit theorems,  
asymptotic
numbers of individuals with infinite vs finite descendances.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.3098

---------------------------------------------------------------

5529. TWO-PARAMETER POISSON-DIRICHLET MEASURES AND REVERSIBLE  
EXCHANGEABLE  FRAGMENTATION-COALESCENCE PROCESSES

Jean Bertoin (PMA and  Dma)

We show that for $0<\alpha<1$ and $\theta>-\alpha$, the Poisson- 
Dirichlet
distribution with parameter $(\alpha, \theta)$ is the unique reversible
distribution of a rather natural fragmentation-coalescence process. This
completes earlier results in the literature for certain split and merge
transformations and the parameter $\alpha =0$.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.3122

---------------------------------------------------------------

5530. HOW TO CLEAN A DIRTY FLOOR: PROBABILISTIC POTENTIAL THEORY AND  
THE  DOBRUSHIN UNIQUENESS THEOREM

Thierry de la Rue and  Roberto Fernandez and  Alan D. Sokal

Motivated by the Dobrushin uniqueness theorem in statistical  
mechanics, we
consider the following situation: Let \alpha be a nonnegative matrix  
over a
finite or countably infinite index set X, and define the "cleaning  
operators"
\beta_h = I_{1-h} + I_h \alpha for h: X \to [0,1] (here I_f denotes the
diagonal matrix with entries f). We ask: For which "cleaning  
sequences" h_1,
h_2, ... do we have c \beta_{h_1} ... \beta_{h_n} \to 0 for a  
suitable class of
"dirt vectors" c? We show, under a modest condition on \alpha, that  
this occurs
whenever \sum_i h_i = \infty everywhere on X. More generally, we  
analyze the
cleaning of subsets \Lambda \subseteq X and the final distribution of  
dirt on
the complement of \Lambda. We show that when supp(h_i) \subseteq  
\Lambda with
\sum_i h_i = \infty everywhere on \Lambda, the operators \beta_{h_1} ...
\beta_{h_n} converge as n \to \infty to the "balayage operator" \Pi_ 
\Lambda =
\sum_{k=0}^\infty (I_\Lambda \alpha)^k I_{\Lambda^c). These results are
obtained in two ways: by a fairly simple matrix formalism, and by a more
powerful tree formalism that corresponds to working with formal power  
series in
which the matrix elements of \alpha are treated as noncommuting  
indeterminates.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.3156

---------------------------------------------------------------

5531. MULTIPLE PATTERN MATCHING: A MARKOV CHAIN APPROACH

Manuel Lladser and  Meredith D. Betterton and  Rob Knight

RNA motifs typically consist of short, modular patterns that include  
base
pairs formed within and between modules. Estimating the abundance of  
these
patterns is of fundamental importance for assessing the statistical
significance of matches in genomewide searches, and for predicting  
whether a
given function has evolved many times in different species or arose  
from a
single common ancestor. In this manuscript, we review in an  
integrated and
self-contained manner some basic concepts of automata theory, generating
functions and transfer matrix methods that are relevant to pattern  
analysis in
biological sequences. We formalize, in a general framework, the  
concept of
Markov chain embedding to analyze patterns in random strings produced  
by a
memoryless source. This conceptualization, together with the  
capability of
automata to recognize complicated patterns, allows a systematic  
analysis of
problems related to the occurrence and frequency of patterns in  
random strings.
The applications we present focus on the concept of synchronization of
automata, as well as automata used to search for a finite number of  
keywords
(including sets of patterns generated according to base pairing  
rules) in a
general text.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.3221

---------------------------------------------------------------

5532. ENTANGLEMENT IN THE QUANTUM ISING MODEL

Geoffrey Grimmett and  Tobias Osborne and  Petra Scudo

We study the asymptotic scaling of the entanglement of a block of  
spins for
the ground state of the one-dimensional quantum Ising model with  
transverse
field. When the field is sufficiently strong, the entanglement grows  
at most
logarithmically in the number of spins. The proof utilises a  
transformation to
a model of classical probability called the continuum random-cluster  
model, and
is based on a property of the latter model termed ratio weak-mixing.  
Our proof
applies equally to a large class of disordered interactions.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.2981

---------------------------------------------------------------

5533. GIBBS MEASURES ON BROWNIAN CURRENTS

Massimiliano Gubinelli and Jozsef Lorinczi

Motivated by applications to quantum field theory we consider Gibbs  
measures
for which the reference measure is Wiener measure and the interaction  
is given
by a double stochastic integral and a pinning external potential. In  
order
properly to characterize these measures through DLR equations, we are  
led to
lift Wiener measure and other objects to a space of configurations  
where the
basic observables are not only the position of the particle at all  
times but
also the work done by test vector fields. We prove existence and basic
properties of such Gibbs measures in the small coupling regime by  
means of
cluster expansion.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.3237

---------------------------------------------------------------

5534. HYDRODYNAMIC LIMIT FOR A PARTICLE SYSTEM WITH DEGENERATE RATES

Patricia Goncalves and  Claudio Landim and  Cristina Toninelli

We study the hydrodynamic limit for some conservative particle  
systems with
degenerate rates, namely with nearest neighbor exchange rates which  
vanish for
certain configurations. These models belong to the class of {\sl  
kinetically
constrained lattice gases} (KCLG) which have been introduced and  
intensively
studied in physics literature as simple models for the liquid/glass  
transition.
Due to the degeneracy of rates for KCLG there exists {\sl blocked
configurations} which do not evolve under the dynamics and in general  
the
hyperplanes of configurations with a fixed number of particles can be
decomposed into different irreducible sets. As a consequence, both  
the Entropy
and Relative Entropy method cannot be straightforwardly applied to  
prove the
hydrodynamic limit. In particular, some care should be put when  
proving the One
and Two block Lemmas which guarantee local convergence to  
equilibrium. We show
that, for initial profiles smooth enough and bounded away from zero  
and one,
the macroscopic density profile for our KCLG evolves under the  
diffusive time
scaling according to the porous medium equation. Then we prove the  
same result
for more general profiles for a slightly perturbed dynamics obtained  
by adding
jumps of the Symmetric Simple Exclusion. The role of the latter is to  
remove
the degeneracy of rates and at the same time they are properly slowed  
down in
order not to change the macroscopic behavior. The equilibrium  
fluctuations and
the magnitude of the spectral gap for this perturbed model are also  
obtained.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.2242

---------------------------------------------------------------

5535. BROWNIAN EXCURSION AREA, WRIGHT'S CONSTANTS IN GRAPH  
ENUMERATION, AND  OTHER BROWNIAN AREAS

Svante Janson

This survey is a collection of various results and formulas by different
authors on the areas (integrals) of five related processes, viz.  
Brownian
motion, bridge, excursion, meander and double meander; for the  
Brownian motion
and bridge, which take both positive and negative values, we consider  
both the
integral of the absolute value and the integral of the positive (or  
negative)
part. This gives us seven related positive random variables, for  
which we
study, in particular, formulas for moments and Laplace transforms; we  
also give
(in many cases) series representations and asymptotics for density  
functions
and distribution functions. We further study Wright's constants  
arising in the
asymptotic enumeration of connected graphs; these are known to be  
closely
connected to the moments of the Brownian excursion area.
   The main purpose is to compare the results for these seven  
Brownian areas by
stating the results in parallel forms; thus emphasizing both the  
similarities
and the differences. A recurring theme is the Airy function which  
appears in
slightly different ways in formulas for all seven random variables.  
We further
want to give explicit relations between the many different similar  
notations
and definitions that have been used by various authors. There are  
also some new
results, mainly to fill in gaps left in the literature. Some short  
proofs are
given, but most proofs are omitted and the reader is instead referred  
to the
original sources.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.2289

---------------------------------------------------------------

5536. EXISTENCE OF GRAPHS WITH SUB EXPONENTIAL TRANSITIONS  
PROBABILITY DECAY  AND APPLICATIONS

Clement Rau (LATP)

In this paper, we present a complete proof of the construction of  
graphs with
bounded valency such that the simple random walk has a return  
probability at
time $n$ at the origin of order $exp(-n^{\alpha}),$ for fixed $\alpha  
\in
[0,1[$ and with Folner function $exp(n^{\frac{2\alpha}{1-\alpha}})$.  
We begin
by giving a more detailled proof of this result contained in (see
\cite{ershdur}). In the second part, we give an application of the  
existence of
such graphs. We obtain bounds of the correct order for some  
functional of the
local time of a simple random walk on an infinite cluster on the  
percolation
model.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.2337

---------------------------------------------------------------

5537. LOCAL WELL-POSEDNESS OF MUSIELA'S SPDE WITH L\'EVY NOISE

Carlo Marinelli

We determine sufficient conditions on the volatility coefficient of  
Musiela's
stochastic partial differential equation driven by an infinite  
dimensional
L\'evy process so that it admits a unique local mild solution in  
spaces of
functions whose first derivative is square integrable with respect to  
a weight.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.2380

---------------------------------------------------------------

5538. MINIMIZING PROBABILITY OF RUIN AND A GAME OF STOPPING AND CONTROL

Erhan Bayraktar and  Virginia R. Young

We consider three closely related problems in optimal control: (1)  
minimizing
the probability of lifetime ruin when the rate of consumption is  
stochastic and
when the individual can invest in a Black-Scholes financial market; (2)
minimizing the probability of lifetime ruin when the rate of  
consumption is
constant but the individual can invest in two risky correlated  
assets; and (3)
a controller-stopper problem: first, the controller controls the  
drift and
volatility of a process in order to maximize a running reward based  
on that
process; then, the stopper chooses the time to stop the running  
reward and
rewards the controller a final amount at that time. We show that the  
values
functions associated with these three problems are smooth and are the  
unique
classical solutions of their Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equations. We  
reveal an
interesting relationship among the value functions of the three  
problems.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.2244

---------------------------------------------------------------

5539. STRONG SPHERICAL ASYMPTOTICS FOR ROTOR-ROUTER AGGREGATION AND  
THE  DIVISIBLE SANDPILE

Lionel Levine and Yuval Peres

The rotor-router model is a deterministic analogue of random walk. It  
can be
used to define a deterministic growth model analogous to internal  
DLA. We prove
that the asymptotic shape of this model is a Euclidean ball, in a  
sense which
is stronger than our earlier work. For the shape consisting of $n= 
\omega_d r^d$
sites, where $\omega_d$ is the volume of the unit ball in $\R^d$, we  
show that
the inradius of the set of occupied sites is at least $r-O(\log r)$,  
while the
outradius is at most $r+O(r^\alpha)$ for any $\alpha > 1-1/d$. For a  
related
model, the divisible sandpile, we show that the domain of occupied  
sites is a
Euclidean ball with error in the radius a constant independent of the  
total
mass. For the classical abelian sandpile model in two dimensions,  
with $n=\pi
r^2$ particles, we show that the inradius is at least $r/\sqrt{3}$,  
and the
outradius is at most $(r+o(r))/\sqrt{2}$. This improves on bounds of  
Le Borgne
and Rossin. Similar bounds apply in higher dimensions.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.0688

---------------------------------------------------------------

5540. ENTROPIC MEASURE AND WASSERSTEIN DIFFUSION

Max-K von Renesse and  Karl-Theodor Sturm

We construct a new random probability measure on the sphere and on  
the unit
interval which in both cases has a Gibbs structure with the relative  
entropy
functional as Hamiltonian. It satisfies a quasi-invariance formula  
with respect
to the action of smooth diffeomorphism of the sphere and the interval
respectively. The associated integration by parts formula is used to  
construct
two classes of diffusion processes on probability measures (on the  
sphere or
the unit interval) by Dirichlet form methods. The first one is  
closely related
to Malliavin's Brownian motion on the homeomorphism group. The second  
one is a
probability valued stochastic perturbation of the heat flow, whose  
intrinsic
metric is the quadratic Wasserstein distance. It may be regarded as the
canonical diffusion process on the Wasserstein space.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.0704

---------------------------------------------------------------

5541. WEAK AND STRONG TAYLOR METHODS FOR NUMERICAL SOLUTIONS OF  
STOCHASTIC  DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS

Maria Siopacha and Josef Teichmann

We apply results of Malliavin-Thalmaier-Watanabe for strong and weak  
Taylor
expansions of solutions of perturbed stochastic differential  
equations (SDEs).
In particular, we work out weight expressions for the Taylor  
coefficients of
the expansion. The results are applied to LIBOR market models in  
order to deal
with the typical stochastic drift and with stochastic volatility. In  
contrast
to other accurate methods like numerical schemes for the full SDE, we  
obtain
easily tractable expressions for accurate pricing. In particular, we  
present an
easily tractable alternative to ``freezing the drift'' in LIBOR  
market models,
which has an accuracy similar to the full numerical scheme. Numerical  
examples
underline the results.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.0745

---------------------------------------------------------------

5542. COMPUTATION OF POWER LOSS IN LIKELIHOOD RATIO TESTS FOR  
PROBABILITY  DENSITIES EXTENDED BY LEHMANN ALTERNATIVES

Lucas Gallindo and  Martins Soares

We compute the loss of power in likelihood ratio tests when we test the
original parameter of a probability density extended by the first  
Lehmann
alternative.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.0739

---------------------------------------------------------------

5543. COMPUTATION OF POWER LOSS IN LIKELIHOOD RATIO TESTS FOR  
PROBABILITY  DENSITIES EXTENDED BY LEHMANN ALTERNATIVES

Lucas Gallindo and  Martins Soares

We compute the loss of power in likelihood ratio tests when we test the
original parameter of a probability density extended by the first  
Lehmann
alternative.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.0739

---------------------------------------------------------------

5544. HITTING PROBABILITIES FOR SYSTEMS OF NON-LINEAR STOCHASTIC  
HEAT  EQUATIONS WITH MULTIPLICATIVE NOISE

Robert C. Dalang and  Davar Khoshnevisan and  and Eulalia Nualart

We consider a system of d non-linear stochastic heat equations in  
spatial
dimension 1 driven by d-dimensional space-time white noise. The non- 
linearities
appear both as additive drift terms and as multipliers of the noise.  
Using
techniques of Malliavin calculus, we establish upper and lower bounds  
on the
one-point density of the solution u(t,x), and upper bounds of  
Gaussian-type on
the two-point density of (u(s,y),u(t,x)). In particular, this estimate
quantifies how this density degenerates as (s,y) converges to (t,x).  
 From these
results, we deduce upper and lower bounds on hitting probabilities of  
the
process {u(t,x)}_{t \in \mathbb{R}_+, x \in [0,1]}, in terms of  
respectively
Hausdorff measure and Newtonian capacity. These estimates make it  
possible to
show that points are polar when d >6 and are not polar when d<6. We  
also show
that the Hausdorff dimension of the range of the process is 6 when  
d>6, and
give analogous results for the processes t \mapsto u(t,x) and x  
\mapsto u(t,x).
Finally, we obtain the values of the Hausdorff dimensions of the  
level sets of
these processes.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.1312

---------------------------------------------------------------

5545. LARGE PORTFOLIO LOSSES; A DYNAMIC CONTAGION MODEL

Paolo Dai Pra and  Wolfgang J. Runggaldier and  Elena Sartori and   
Marco Tolotti

Using particle system methodologies we study the propagation of  
financial
distress in a network of firms facing credit risk. We investigate the
phenomenon of a credit crisis and quantify the losses that a bank may  
suffer in
a large credit portfolio. Applying a large deviation principle we  
compute the
limiting distributions of the system and determine the time evolution  
of the
credit quality indicators of the firms, deriving moreover the  
dynamics of a
global financial health indicator. We finally describe a suitable  
version of
the ``central limit theorem'' useful to study large portfolio losses.
Simulation results are provided as well as applications to portfolio  
loss
distribution analysis.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.1348

---------------------------------------------------------------

5546. SOBOLEV SOLUTION FOR SEMILINEAR PDE WITH OBSTACLE UNDER  
MONOTONICITY  CONDITION

A.Matoussi and  M. Xu

We prove the existence and uniqueness of the solution of a semilinear  
PDE's
and also PDE's with obstacle under monotonicity condition. Moreover  
we give the
probabilistic interpretation of the Sobolev's solutions in term of  
Backward SDE
and reflected Backward SDE respectively.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.1414

---------------------------------------------------------------

5547. EXACT RETROSPECTIVE MONTE CARLO COMPUTATION OF ARITHMETIC  
AVERAGE ASIAN  OPTIONS

Benjamin Jourdain (CERMICS) and  Mohamed Sbai (CERMICS)

Using ideas from the exact algorithm of Beskos, Papaspiliopoulos and  
Roberts,
we derive an exact simulation based technique for pricing continuous  
arithmetic
average Asian options in the Black and Scholes framework. Unlike  
existing Monte
Carlo methods, we are no longer prone to the discretization bias  
resulting from
the approximation of continuous time processes through discrete  
sampling.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.1433

---------------------------------------------------------------

5548. LARGE DEVIATIONS OF POISSON CLUSTER PROCESSES

Charles Bordenave and Giovanni Luca Torrisi

In this paper we prove scalar and sample path large deviation  
principles for
a large class of Poisson cluster processes. As a consequence, we  
provide a
large deviation principle for ergodic Hawkes point processes.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.1463

---------------------------------------------------------------

5549. WILLIAMS' DECOMPOSITION OF THE L\'EVY CONTINUOUS RANDOM TREE  
AND  SIMULTANEOUS EXTINCTION PROBABILITY FOR POPULATIONS WITH NEUTRAL  
MUTATIONS

Romain Abraham (MAPMO) and  Jean-Fran\c{c}ois Delmas (CERMICS)

We consider an initial Eve-population and a population of neutral  
mutants,
such that the total population dies out in finite time. We describe the
evolution of the Eve-population and the total population with  
continuous state
branching processes, and the neutral mutation procedure can be seen  
as an
immigration process with intensity proportional to the size of the  
population.
First we establish a Williams' decomposition of the genealogy of the  
total
population given by a continuous random tree, according to the ancestral
lineage of the last individual alive. This allows us give a closed  
formula for
the probability of simultaneous extinction of the Eve-population and  
the total
population.


  http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.1475





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