An improved upper bound for the critical probability of the frog model on homogeneous trees (Q2487826)

The authors study the frog model on homogeneous trees of degree \(d+1\), a discrete time system of simple symmetric random walks. The model can be described as follows. There are active and inactive particles living on the vertices. Each active particle performs a simple symmetric random walk having a geometrically distributed random lifetime with parameter \(1-p\). When an active particle hits an inactive particle, the latter becomes active. We say that the model survives if for every instance of time there is at least one active particle. Define \[ p_c=\inf\{p: \text{the model survives with positive probability}\}. \] Then the main result of the paper is as follows. \[ \frac{d+1}{2 d}\geq p_c\geq \frac{d+1}{2 d+1} \] in the case of one-particle-per-vertex initial configuration. The main tool is to construct a class of branching processes which are dominated by the frog model and analyze their supercritical behavior. This approach leads also an upper bound for the critical probability in the case of random initial configuration.