The Derrida-Retaux conjecture on recursive models (Q2039412)

The authors present results in the nearly supercritical regime in a family of maxtype stochastic recursive models studied earlier by \textit{P. Collet} et al. [Commun. Math. Phys. 94, 353--370 (1984; Zbl 0553.60099)] and by \textit{B. Derrida} and \textit{M. Retaux} [J. Stat. Phys. 156, No. 2, 268--290 (2014; Zbl 1312.82005)] and prove that, under a suitable integrability assumption on the initial distribution, the free energy vanishes at the transition with an essential singularity with exponent 1/2. This gives a weaker statement, confirming to some extent a conjecture of Derrida and Retaux [loc. cit.]. Other behaviours are obtained when the integrability condition is not satisfied. These models have a hierarchical structure and have shown up in different contexts (pinning models, parking models and spin glass models). The proven exponent confirming the conjecture Derrida and Retaux contradicts another conjecture in the literature about the exponent.