We investigate random minimal factorizations of the n-cycle, that is, factorizations of the permutation $(1 \, 2 \cdots n)$ into a product of cycles $\tau_1, \ldots, \tau_k$ whose lengths $\ell(\tau_1), \ldots, \ell(\tau_k)$ satisfy the minimality condition $\sum_{i=1}^k(\ell(\tau_i)-1)=n-1$ . By associating to a cycle of the factorization a black polygon inscribed in the unit disk, and reading the cycles one after another, we code a minimal factorization by a process of colored laminations of the disk. These new objects are compact subsets made of red noncrossing chords delimiting faces that are either black or white. Our main result is the convergence of this process as $n \rightarrow \infty$ , when the factorization is randomly chosen according to Boltzmann weights in the domain of attraction of an $\alpha$ -stable law, for some $\alpha \in (1,2]$ . The limiting process interpolates between the unit circle and a colored version of Kortchemski’s $\alpha$ -stable lamination. Our principal tool in the study of this process is a new bijection between minimal factorizations and a model of size-conditioned labeled random trees whose vertices are colored black or white, as well as the investigation of the asymptotic properties of these trees.

We consider a collection of Markov chains that model the evolution of multitype biological populations. The state space of the chains is the positive orthant, and the boundary of the orthant is the absorbing state for the Markov chain and represents the extinction states of different population types. We are interested in the long-term behavior of the Markov chain away from extinction, under a small noise scaling. Under this scaling, the trajectory of the Markov process over any compact interval converges in distribution to the solution of an ordinary differential equation (ODE) evolving in the positive orthant. We study the asymptotic behavior of the quasi-stationary distributions (QSD) in this scaling regime. Our main result shows that, under conditions, the limit points of the QSD are supported on the union of interior attractors of the flow determined by the ODE. We also give lower bounds on expected extinction times which scale exponentially with the system size. Results of this type when the deterministic dynamical system obtained under the scaling limit is given by a discrete-time evolution equation and the dynamics are essentially in a compact space (namely, the one-step map is a bounded function) have been studied by Faure and Schreiber (2014). Our results extend these to a setting of an unbounded state space and continuous-time dynamics. The proofs rely on uniform large deviation results for small noise stochastic dynamical systems and methods from the theory of continuous-time dynamical systems.

In general, QSD for Markov chains with absorbing states and unbounded state spaces may not exist. We study one basic family of binomial-Poisson models in the positive orthant where one can use Lyapunov function methods to establish existence of QSD and also to argue the tightness of the QSD of the scaled sequence of Markov chains. The results from the first part are then used to characterize the support of limit points of this sequence of QSD.

Let $(Z_n)_{n\geq 0}$ be a critical branching process in a random environment defined by a Markov chain $(X_n)_{n\geq 0}$ with values in a finite state space $\mathbb{X}$ . Let $ S_n = \sum_{k=1}^n \ln f_{X_k}^{\prime}(1)$ be the Markov walk associated to $(X_n)_{n\geq 0}$ , where $f_i$ is the offspring generating function when the environment is $i \in \mathbb{X}$ . Conditioned on the event $\{ Z_n>0\}$ , we show the nondegeneracy of the limit law of the normalized number of particles ${Z_n}/{e^{S_n}}$ and determine the limit of the law of $\frac{S_n}{\sqrt{n}} $ jointly with $X_n$ . Based on these results we establish a Yaglom-type theorem which specifies the limit of the joint law of $ \log Z_n$ and $X_n$ given $Z_n>0$ .

We revisit the so-called cat-and-mouse Markov chain, studied earlier by Litvak and Robert (2012). This is a two-dimensional Markov chain on the lattice $\mathbb{Z}^2$ , where the first component (the cat) is a simple random walk and the second component (the mouse) changes when the components meet. We obtain new results for two generalisations of the model. First, in the two-dimensional case we consider far more general jump distributions for the components and obtain a scaling limit for the second component. When we let the first component be a simple random walk again, we further generalise the jump distribution of the second component. Secondly, we consider chains of three and more dimensions, where we investigate structural properties of the model and find a limiting law for the last component.

This paper discusses a general class of replicator–mutator equations on a multidimensional fitness space. We establish a novel probabilistic representation of weak solutions of the equation by using the theory of Fokker–Planck–Kolmogorov (FPK) equations and a martingale extraction approach. We provide examples with closed-form probabilistic solutions for different fitness functions considered in the existing literature. We also construct a particle system and prove a general convergence result to the unique solution of the FPK equation associated with the extended replicator–mutator equation with respect to a Wasserstein-like metric adapted to our probabilistic framework.

This paper studies estimation of stochastic block models with Rissanen’s minimum description length (MDL) principle in the dense graph asymptotics. We focus on the problem of model specification, i.e., identification of the number of blocks. Refinements of the true partition always decrease the code part corresponding to the edge placement, and thus a respective increase of the code part specifying the model should overweight that gain in order to yield a minimum at the true partition. The balance between these effects turns out to be delicate. We show that the MDL principle identifies the true partition among models whose relative block sizes are bounded away from zero. The results are extended to models with Poisson-distributed edge weights.

Signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) percolation is an infinite-range dependent variant of continuum percolation modeling connections in a telecommunication network. Unlike in earlier works, in the present paper the transmitted signal powers of the devices of the network are assumed random, independent and identically distributed, and possibly unbounded. Additionally, we assume that the devices form a stationary Cox point process, i.e., a Poisson point process with stationary random intensity measure, in two or more dimensions. We present the following main results. First, under suitable moment conditions on the signal powers and the intensity measure, there is percolation in the SINR graph given that the device density is high and interferences are sufficiently reduced, but not vanishing. Second, if the interference cancellation factor $\gamma$ and the SINR threshold $\tau$ satisfy $\gamma \geq 1/(2\tau)$ , then there is no percolation for any intensity parameter. Third, in the case of a Poisson point process with constant powers, for any intensity parameter that is supercritical for the underlying Gilbert graph, the SINR graph also percolates with some small but positive interference cancellation factor.

We study an open discrete-time queueing network. We assume data is generated at nodes of the network as a discrete-time Bernoulli process. All nodes in the network maintain a queue and relay data, which is to be finally collected by a designated sink. We prove that the resulting multidimensional Markov chain representing the queue size of nodes has two behavior regimes depending on the value of the rate of data generation. In particular, we show that there is a nontrivial critical value of the data rate below which the chain is ergodic and converges to a stationary distribution and above which it is non-ergodic, i.e., the queues at the nodes grow in an unbounded manner. We show that the rate of convergence to stationarity is geometric in the subcritical regime.

In this paper we analyze a simple spectral method (EIG1) for the problem of matrix alignment, consisting in aligning their leading eigenvectors: given two matrices A and B, we compute two corresponding leading eigenvectors $v_1$ and $v'_{\!\!1}$ . The algorithm returns the permutation $\hat{\pi}$ such that the rank of coordinate $\hat{\pi}(i)$ in $v_1$ and that of coordinate i in $v'_{\!\!1}$ (up to the sign of $v'_{\!\!1}$ ) are the same.

We consider a model of weighted graphs where the adjacency matrix A belongs to the Gaussian orthogonal ensemble of size $N \times N$ , and B is a noisy version of A where all nodes have been relabeled according to some planted permutation $\pi$ ; that is, $B= \Pi^T (A+\sigma H) \Pi $ , where $\Pi$ is the permutation matrix associated with $\pi$ and H is an independent copy of A. We show the following zero–one law: with high probability, under the condition $\sigma N^{7/6+\epsilon} \to 0$ for some $\epsilon>0$ , EIG1 recovers all but a vanishing part of the underlying permutation $\pi$ , whereas if $\sigma N^{7/6-\epsilon} \to \infty$ , this method cannot recover more than o(N) correct matches.

This result gives an understanding of the simplest and fastest spectral method for matrix alignment (or complete weighted graph alignment), and involves proof methods and techniques which could be of independent interest.

For a one-locus haploid infinite population with discrete generations, the celebrated model of Kingman describes the evolution of fitness distributions under the competition of selection and mutation, with a constant mutation probability. This paper generalises Kingman’s model by using independent and identically distributed random mutation probabilities, to reflect the influence of a random environment. The weak convergence of fitness distributions to the globally stable equilibrium is proved. Condensation occurs when almost surely a positive proportion of the population travels to and condenses at the largest fitness value. Condensation may occur when selection is favoured over mutation. A criterion for the occurrence of condensation is given.