On the long term behavior of some finite particle systems

SummaryWe consider the problem of comparing large finite and infinite systems with locally interacting components, and present a general comparison scheme for the case when the infinite system is nonergodic. We show that this scheme holds for some specific models. One of these is critical branching random walk onZd. Letηt denote this system, and letηtN denote a finite version ofηt defined on the torus [−N,N]d∩Zd. Ford≧3 we prove that for stationary, shift ergodic initial measures with density θ, that ifT(N)→∞ andT(N)/(2N+1)d →s∈[0,∞] asN→∞, then {vθ}, θ≧0 is the set of extremal invariant measures for the infinite systemηt andQs is the transition function of Feller's branching diffusion. We prove several extensions and refinements of this result. The other systems we consider are the voter model and the contact process.

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