Coexistence in a competition model (Q1200736)

A competition model is constructed on \(\mathbb{Z}^ d\) as follows. Let \(N\) be a positive integer, and let \(\Omega=\{0,1,\dots,N\}^{\mathbb{Z}^ d}\) be the state space. There are positive rates \(\lambda_ 1,\lambda_ 2,\dots,\lambda_ N\). If \(x\) has a neighbour in state \(i\) (where \(i\geq 1)\), then the state of \(x\) becomes \(i\) at rate \(\lambda_ i\). The other transition is that the state of \(x\) becomes 0 (the `neutral' state) at rate 1. By harnessing established and deep results for the contact process, it is proved that all states \(1,2,\dots,N\) coexist forever with positive probability, and for some values of the \(\lambda_ j\), if and only if \(d>d(c,N)\), where \(d(c,N)=\inf\{d:\lambda_ c(d)\geq(N+1)^{- 1}\}\) and \(\lambda_ c(d)\) is the critical value of the \(d\)-dimensional process with \(N=1\).