System closure and dynamical degeneracy (Q1106115)

The mathematical descriptions of material systems found in contemporary physics tend to be highly nongeneric. Conditions of isolation, closure, symmetry and conservation are invariably associated with nongeneric and hence degenerate mathematical objects. In particular, the systems of classical thermodynamics are shown here to be associated with a maximal dynamical degeneracy. Some consequences of this peculiar fact, bearing on athe limiting behaviour in distribution of a family of contact processes on \({\mathbb{Z}}\), in which each infected site recovers at rate 1, but until then exerts a force of infection \(\lambda_ r\) on its right hand neighbor and \(\lambda_{\ell}\) on its left hand neighbour: thus \textit{T. E. Harris}' [Ann. Probab. 2, 969-988 (1974; Zbl 0334.60052)] basic contact process \((\lambda_ r=\lambda_{\ell})\) and the one-sided contact process \((\lambda_{\ell}=0)\) are special cases. It is shown that there are regions \(A,B_ 1,B_ 2\) of \((\lambda_ r,\lambda_{\ell})\)-values such that the process is ergodic for values in A, behaves like a super-critical one-sided process in \(B_ 1\) and like a super-critical basic process in \(B_ 2\). A different kind of behaviour is also established for values on the boundary of \(B_ 1\) and \(B_ 2\). Some information about the shape and size of \(B_ 1\) and \(B_ 2\) is also obtained.