Partially ordered models (Q607761)

The authors provide a formal definition and studied the basic properties of partially ordered random fields (PORF). Note that such systems were proposed to model textures in image processing and to represent independence relations between random variables in statistics. Considered random fields are a generalization of probabilistic cellular automata (PCA) and their theory has features intermediate between that of discrete-time processes and the theory of statistical mechanical lattice fields. Its proper definition is based on the notion of partially ordered specification (POS), in close analogy to the theory of Gibbs measures. Basically, two kinds of results are contained the present paper. First, it is presented the basic elements of the general theory of PORFs (similarly like the theory of Gibbs measures): basic geometrical issues, definition in terms of conditional probability kernels, extremal decomposition, extremality and triviality, reconstruction starting from single-site kernels, relations between POM and Gibbs fields. Second, it is proved three uniqueness criteria that correspond to the criteria known as uniform boundedness, Dobrushin uniqueness and disagreement percolation in the theory of Gibbs measures.