Large deviation analysis of a droplet model having a Poisson equilibrium distribution (Q274830)

Summary: In this paper, we use large deviation theory to determine the equilibrium distribution of a basic droplet model that underlies a number of important models in material science and statistical mechanics. Given \(b \in \mathbb{N}\) and \(c > b\), \(K\) distinguishable particles are placed, each with equal probability \(1 / N\), onto the \(N\) sites of a lattice, where \(K / N\) equals \(c\). We focus on configurations for which each site is occupied by a minimum of \(b\) particles. The main result is the large deviation principle (LDP), in the limit \(K \to \infty\) and \(N \to \infty\) with \(K / N = c\), for a sequence of random, number-density measures, which are the empirical measures of dependent random variables that count the droplet sizes. The rate function in the LDP is the relative entropy \(R(\theta \mid \rho^\ast)\), where \(\theta\) is a possible asymptotic configuration of the number-density measures and \(\rho^\ast\) is a Poisson distribution with mean \(c\), restricted to the set of positive integers \(n\) satisfying \(n \geq b\). This LDP implies that \(\rho^\ast\) is the equilibrium distribution of the number-density measures, which in turn implies that \(\rho^\ast\) is the equilibrium distribution of the random variables that count the droplet sizes.