Conjecture on finite-population traveling waves and propagation speed

Let mu0Kmu_0^K be a compactly supported initial distribution, let fxiK(t)=HK(futK)fxi^K(t)=H_K(fu^K_t) denote the position of the particle of rank KK, and let μ^tK:=μtK(fxiK(t))\hat{\mu}^{K}_t:=\mu^K_t(\cdot-fxi^K(t)) be the population distribution in the moving frame. Write

σ={χ+1χif χ>1,2if χ1.\sigma^*=\left\{\begin{array}{ll}\chi+\frac{1}{\chi} & \text{if }\chi>1,\\2 & \text{if }\chi\leq 1.\end{array}\right.

Finite-population traveling-wave conjecture. There exists a propagation speed σK\sigma^K such that, in an appropriate convergence sense, limt+ξK(t)t=σK\lim_{t\to+\infty}\frac{\xi^K(t)}{t}=\sigma^K; for every compact subset KR\mathcal K\subset\mathbb R, μ^tK\hat{\mu}^{K}_t converges in law on K\mathcal K to a stationary distribution μ^K\hat{\mu}^{K}_{\infty}; and limK+σK=σ\lim_{K\to+\infty}\sigma^K=\sigma^*.

These assertions formalize the numerically observed linear spreading, local convergence to a stationary traveling-wave profile in the moving frame, and convergence of the finite-population speed to the deterministic speed. The source presents them as open problems, and the precise meaning of the convergence in the first assertion remains unspecified.

Sources & referencesView supporting material

Primary source

Mete Demircigil and Milica Tomasevic, “Convergence and Wave Propagation for a System of Branching Rank-Based Interacting Brownian Particles”, arXiv:2505.08563 (2025).

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