Ballistic aggregation's stochastic differential approximation conjecture

Let Xn\mathcal{X}_n be the horizontal coordinate of the ballistic aggregation process, let θ\theta be its parameter, and let WW be Brownian motion. Define

μ(θ)=cosθ1cosθ,\mu(\theta)=\frac{\cos\theta}{1-\cos\theta}, σ(θ)=(θ2+θsin(θ)cos(θ))/21cosθ.\sigma(\theta)=\frac{\sqrt{\left(\theta^2+\theta\sin(\theta)\cos(\theta)\right)/2}}{1-\cos\theta}.

Stochastic differential approximation conjecture. The process Xn\mathcal{X}_n behaves like a continuous-time process XtX_t satisfying

dXt=σ(θ)tdWt+μ(θ)Xttdt.dX_t=\frac{\sigma(\theta)}{t}\,dW_t+\frac{\mu(\theta)X_t}{t}\,dt.

This conjecture formalizes the self-organized critical scaling suggested by the asymptotic drift and variance calculations. The supplied text does not state whether this approximation has been proved or disproved.

Sources & referencesView supporting material

Primary source

Krzysztof Burdzy, “Ballistic aggregation displays self-organized criticality”, arXiv:2508.08613 (2025).

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