Asymptotic behavior of Aldous' gossip process

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Publication:657708




Abstract: Aldous [(2007) Preprint] defined a gossip process in which space is a discrete NimesN torus, and the state of the process at time t is the set of individuals who know the information. Information spreads from a site to its nearest neighbors at rate 1/4 each and at rate Nalpha to a site chosen at random from the torus. We will be interested in the case in which alpha<3, where the long range transmission significantly accelerates the time at which everyone knows the information. We prove three results that precisely describe the spread of information in a slightly simplified model on the real torus. The time until everyone knows the information is asymptotically T=(22alpha/3)Nalpha/3logN. If hos is the fraction of the population who know the information at time s and varepsilon is small then, for large N, the time until hos reaches varepsilon is T(varepsilon)approxT+Nalpha/3log(3varepsilon/M), where M is a random variable determined by the early spread of the information. The value of hos at time s=T(1/3)+tNalpha/3 is almost a deterministic function h(t) which satisfies an odd looking integro-differential equation. The last result confirms a heuristic calculation of Aldous.









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