On the width of hybrid zones (Q2464846)

The authors study the interacting particle systems with behavior having an interesting interpretation in the hybrid zones sense (they concentrate on the allele frequency at the selected locus). Let \(\eta_t\) be the nonhomogeneous biased voter model on \(\mathbb{Z}^d\) where \(1\)'s are favored on \((0,\infty)\times \mathbb{Z}^{d-1}\) and \(0\)'s are favored on \((-\infty,0]\times \mathbb{Z}^{d-1}\). The rates of transitions are specified in terms of the system state \(\eta\), parameter \(\beta\) and probability distribution \(q\) (with certain properties) on \(\mathbb{Z}^d\). One starts with \(\eta_0(x)=0\) if \(x_1 \leq 0\) and \(\eta_0(x) =1\) if \(x_1>0\). Set \(w_{\beta}= 1/\beta\) if \(d=1\), \(w_{\beta}=\beta^{-1/2} (\log(1/\beta))^{1/2}\) if \(d=2\) and \(w_{\beta}=\beta^{-1/2}\) for \(\beta \geq 3\). It is proved that there exists a nontrivial stationary distribution \(\xi_{\infty}\) such that \[ \lim_{k\to \infty}\liminf_{\beta\to 0}\inf_{x_1 \geq kw_{\beta}} { P}(\xi_{\infty} =1)=1,\;\; \lim_{k\to \infty}\limsup_{\beta\to 0}\sup_{x_1 \leq -kw_{\beta}} { P}(\xi_{\infty} =1)=0. \] For \(d\geq 2\) or in the one-dimensional nearest neighbor case it is established that \[ \limsup_{\beta\to 0} \sup_{0\leq x_1 \leq w_{\beta}} { P}(\xi_{\infty} =1)<1. \] The value \(w_{\beta}\) has the meaning of the hybrid zone. The comparison of different models (including those treated in the biology literature) based on PDEs is provided as well.