On the stability of a population growth model with sexual reproduction on \(Z^ 2\) (Q1184088)

The contact process with sexual reproduction on \(Z^ 2\) is investigated. Let \(t\in R_ +\) and \(\xi_ t\) be the injection of \(R_ +\) into the \(\sigma\)-algebra of the subsets in \(Z^ 2\). Let \(\{\xi_ t(x)\}\) be a random process, where \(\xi_ t(x): Z^ 2\times R_ +\to \{0,1\}\), \(\xi_ t(x)=1\) if \(x\in\xi_ t\), \(\xi_ t(x)=0\) if \(x\not\in \xi_ t\). The model dynamics is defined by \[ P(x\not\in\xi_{t+s}\mid \xi_ t)=\delta s+o(s),\quad P(x\in \xi_{t+s}\mid \xi_ t)=b_ x(\xi_ t)s+o(s),\quad\text{as } s\to 0, \] where \(b_ x(\xi)\) are the birth rates, and \(\delta\) is the death rate. The case in which \(b_ x(\xi)=\lambda > 0\) if any one of the neighbouring sites pairs is occupied and \(b_ x(\xi)=0\) otherwise is studied. Let \(\xi^ p_ t\) be the process whose initial distribution \(\xi^ p_ 0\) satisfies the condition that events \(\{x\in\xi_ 0^ p\}\), \(x\in Z^ 2\), are independent and \(P(x\in\xi^ p_ 0)=p>0\) for each site \(x\). The main results of the paper are Theorem 1. For given \(\lambda\in (1,\infty)\), if \(p>0\) is sufficiently small, then, for large \(t\), \(P(0\in\xi^ p_ t)\leq t^{- \log_{2\lambda}(1/p)}\), where \(c>0\) is independent of \(\lambda\) and \(p\). Theorem 2. Let \(\xi^{0,\beta}_ t\) be the process with spontaneous birth at rate \(\beta>0\). If \(\lambda\) is sufficiently large, then \(\lim_{\beta\to 0} P(0\in\xi_ \infty^{0,\beta}) > 0\).