Classification of catalytic branching processes and structure of the criticality set

Abstract

We study a catalytic branching process (CBP) with any finite set of catalysts. This model describes a system of particles where the movement is governed by a Markov chain with arbitrary finite or countable state space and the branching may only occur at the points of catalysis. The results obtained generalize and strengthen those known in cases of CBP with a single catalyst and of branching random walk on d-dimensional integer lattice with a finite number of sources of particles generation. We propose to classify CBP with N catalysts as supercritical, critical or subcritical according to the value of the Perron root of a specified NxN matrix. Such classification agrees with the moment analysis performed here for local and total particles numbers. By introducing the criticality set C we also consider the influence of catalysts parameters on the process behavior. The proof is based on construction of auxiliary multi-type Bellman-Harris processes with the help of hitting times under taboo and on application of multidimensional renewal theorems. Keywords and phrases: catalytic branching process, classification, hitting times under taboo, moment analysis, multi-type Bellman-Harris process.