We introduce an idealised model for overland flow generated by rain falling on a hillslope. Our prime motivation is to show how the coalescence of runoff streams promotes the total generation of runoff. We show that, for our model, as the rate of rainfall increases in relation to the soil infiltration rate there is a distinct phase change. For low rainfall (the subcritical case) only the bottom of the hillslope contributes to the total overland runoff, while for high rainfall (the supercritical case) the whole slope contributes and the total runoff increases dramatically. We identify the critical point at which the phase change occurs, and show how it depends on the degree of coalescence. When there is no stream coalescence the critical point occurs when the rainfall rate equals the average infiltration rate, but when we allow coalescence the critical point occurs when the rainfall rate is less than the average infiltration rate, and increasing the amount of coalescence increases the total expected runoff.

We study the evolution of cooperation in an interacting particle system with two types. The model we investigate is an extension of a two-type biased voter model. One type (called defector) has a (positive) bias α with respect to the other type (called cooperator). However, a cooperator helps a neighbor (either defector or cooperator) to reproduce at rate γ. We prove that the one-dimensional nearest-neighbor interacting dynamical system exhibits a phase transition at α = γ. A special choice of interaction kernels yield that for α > γ cooperators always die out, but if γ > α, cooperation is the winning strategy.

We study a simple random process in which vertices of a connected graph reach consensus through pairwise interactions. We compute outcome probabilities, which do not depend on the graph structure, and consider the expected time until a consensus is reached. In some cases we are able to show that this is minimised by Kn. We prove an upper bound for the p=0 case and give a family of graphs which asymptotically achieve this bound. In order to obtain the mean of the waiting time we also study a gambler's ruin process with delays. We give the mean absorption time and prove that it monotonically increases with p∈[0,1∕2] for symmetric delays.

The objective of this paper is to give a rigorous analysis of a stochastic spatial model of producer-consumer systems that has been recently introduced by Kang and the author to understand the role of space in ecological communities in which individuals compete for resources. Each point of the square lattice is occupied by an individual which is characterized by one of two possible types, and updates its type in continuous time at rate 1. Each individual being thought of as a producer and consumer of resources, the new type at each update is chosen at random from a certain interaction neighborhood according to probabilities proportional to the ability of the neighbors to consume the resource produced by the individual to be updated. In addition to giving a complete qualitative picture of the phase diagram of the spatial model, our results indicate that the nonspatial deterministic mean-field approximation of the stochastic process fails to describe the behavior of the system in the presence of local interactions. In particular, we prove that, in the parameter region where the nonspatial model displays bistability, there is a dominant type that wins regardless of its initial density in the spatial model, and that the inclusion of space also translates into a significant reduction of the parameter region where both types coexist.

For a homogeneous random walk in the quarter plane with nearest-neighbor transitions, starting from some state (i0,j0), we study the event that the walk reaches the vertical axis, before reaching the horizontal axis. We derive a certain integral representation for the probability of this event, and an asymptotic expression for the case when i0 becomes large, a situation in which the event becomes highly unlikely. The integral representation follows from the solution of a boundary value problem and involves a conformal gluing function. The asymptotic expression follows from the asymptotic evaluation of this integral. Our results find applications in a model for nucleosome shifting, the voter model, and the asymmetric exclusion process.

Two species (designated by 0's and 1's) compete for territory on a lattice according to the rules of a voter model, except that the 0's jump d0 spaces and the 1's jump d1 spaces. When d0 = d1 = 1 the model is the usual voter model. It is shown that in one dimension, if d1 > d0 and d0 = 1,2 and initially there are infinitely many blocks of 1's of length ≥ d1, then the 1's eliminate the 0's. It is believed this may be true whenever d1 > d0. In the biased annihilating branching process particles place offspring on empty neighbouring sites at rate λ and neighbouring pairs of particles coalesce at rate 1. In one dimension it is known to converge to the product measure density λ/(1+λ) when λ ≥ 1/3, and the initial configuration is non-zero and finite. This result is extended to λ ≥ 0.0347. Bounds on the edge-speed are given.

The Moran model in population genetics may also be regarded as an invasion process (or voter model) on the complete n-graph. Tracing lines of ancestry is equivalent to studying the dual process. Using this technique certain results concerning lines of ancestry can be derived very rapidly.