We study the branching random walk on weighted graphs; site-breeding and edgebreeding branching random walks on graphs are seen as particular cases. Two kinds of survival can be identified: a weak survival (with positive probability there is at least one particle alive somewhere at any time) and a strong survival (with positive probability the colony survives by returning infinitely often to a fixed site). The behavior of the process depends on the value of a certain parameter which controls the birth rates; the threshold between survival and (almost sure) extinction is called critical value. We describe the strong critical value in terms of a geometrical parameter of the graph. We characterize the weak critical value and relate it to another geometrical parameter. We prove that, at the strong critical value, the process dies out locally almost surely; while, at the weak critical value, global survival and global extinction are both possible.

We consider weak and strong survival for branching random walks on multigraphs with bounded degree. We prove that, at the strong critical value, the process dies out locally almost surely. We relate the weak critical value to a geometric parameter of the multigraph. For a large class of multigraphs (which enlarges the class of quasi-transitive or regular graphs), we prove that, at the weak critical value, the process dies out globally almost surely. Moreover, for the same class, we prove that the existence of a pure weak phase is equivalent to nonamenability. The results are extended to branching random walks on weighted graphs.

Given a branching random walk on a graph, we consider two kinds of truncations: either by inhibiting the reproduction outside a subset of vertices or by allowing at most m particles per vertex. We investigate the convergence of weak and strong critical parameters of these truncated branching random walks to the analogous parameters of the original branching random walk. As a corollary, we apply our results to the study of the strong critical parameter of a branching random walk restricted to the cluster of a Bernoulli bond percolation.

In this paper we study the strong local survival property for discrete-time and continuous-time branching random walks. We study this property by means of an infinite-dimensional generating function G and a maximum principle which, we prove, is satisfied by every fixed point of G. We give results for the existence of a strong local survival regime and we prove that, unlike local and global survival, in continuous time, strong local survival is not a monotone property in the general case (though it is monotone if the branching random walk is quasitransitive). We provide an example of an irreducible branching random walk where the strong local property depends on the starting site of the process. By means of other counterexamples, we show that the existence of a pure global phase is not equivalent to nonamenability of the process, and that even an irreducible branching random walk with the same branching law at each site may exhibit nonstrong local survival. Finally, we show that the generating function of an irreducible branching random walk can have more than two fixed points; this disproves a previously known result.

We consider weak and strong survival for branching random walks on multigraphs with bounded degree. We prove that, at the strong critical value, the process dies out locally almost surely. We relate the weak critical value to a geometrical parameter of the multigraph. For a large class of multigraphs (which enlarges the class of quasi-transitive or regular graphs) we prove that, at the weak critical value, the process dies out globally almost surely. Moreover for the same class we prove that the existence of a pure weak phase is equivalent to nonamenability. The results are extended to branching random walks on weighted graphs.

We introduce spatially explicit stochastic processes to model multispecies host-symbiont interactions. The host environment is static, modeled by the infinite percolation cluster of site percolation. Symbionts evolve on the infinite cluster through contact or voter type interactions, where each host may be infected by a colony of symbionts. In the presence of a single symbiont species, the condition for invasion as a function of the density of the habitat of hosts and the maximal size of the colonies is investigated in details.In the presence of multiple symbiont species, it is proved that the community of symbionts clusters in two dimensions whereas symbiont species may coexist in higher dimensions.

Abstract. We study an interacting random walk system on Z where at time 0 there is an active particle at 0 and one inactive particle on each site n ≥ 1. Particles become active when hit by another active particle. Once activated, the particle starting at n performs an asymmetric, translation invariant, nearest neighbor random walk with left jump probability ln. We give conditions for global survival, local survival and infinite activation both in the case where all particles are immortal and in the case where particles have geometrically distributed lifespan (with parameter depending on the starting location of the particle). More precisely, once activated, the particle at n survives at each step with probability pn ∈ [0, 1]. In particular, in the immortal case, we prove a 0-1 law for the probability of local survival when all particles drift to the right. Besides that, we give sufficient conditions for local survival or local extinction when all particles drift to the left. In the mortal case, we provide sufficient conditions for global survival, local survival and local extinction (which apply to the immortal case with mixed drifts as well). Analysis of explicit examples is provided: we describe completely the phase diagram in the cases 1/2 − ln ∼ ±1/n α , pn = 1 and 1/2 − ln ∼ ±1/n α , 1 − pn ∼ 1/n β (where α, β > 0).

We investigate the asymptotical behaviour of the transition probabilities of the simple random walk on the 2-comb. In particular, we obtain space-time uniform asymptotical estimates which show the lack of symmetry of this walk better than local limit estimates. Our results also point out the impossibility of getting sub-Gaussian estimates involving the spectral and walk dimensions of the graph.2000 Mathematics subject classification: primary 60J10.