Superdiffusions with large mass creation --- construction and growth estimates

Abstract

Superdiffusions corresponding to differential operators of the form $\LL u+\beta u-\alpha u^{2}$ with large mass creation term $\beta$ are studied. Our construction for superdiffusions with large mass creations works for the branching mechanism $\beta u-\alpha u^{1+\gamma},\ 0<\gamma<1,$ as well. Let $D\subseteq\mathbb{R}^{d}$ be a domain in $\R^d$. When $\beta$ is large, the generalized principal eigenvalue $\lambda_c$ of $L+\beta$ in $D$ is typically infinite. Let $\{T_{t},t\ge0\}$ denote the Schr\"odinger semigroup of $L+\beta$ in $D$ with zero Dirichlet boundary condition. Under the mild assumption that there exists an $0<h\in C^{2}(D)$ so that $T_{t}h$ is finite-valued for all $t\ge 0$, we show that there is a unique $\mathcal{M}_{loc}(D)$-valued Markov process that satisfies a log-Laplace equation in terms of the minimal nonnegative solution to a semilinear initial value problem. Although for super-Brownian motion (SBM) this assumption requires $\beta$ be less than quadratic, the quadratic case will be treated as well. When $\lambda_c = \infty$, the usual machinery, including martingale methods and PDE as well as other similar techniques cease to work effectively, both for the construction and for the investigation of the large time behavior of the superdiffusions. In this paper, we develop the following two new techniques in the study of local/global growth of mass and for the spread of the superdiffusions: \begin{itemize} \item a generalization of the Fleischmann-Swart `Poissonization-coupling,' linking superprocesses with branching diffusions; \item the introduction of a new concept: the `{\it $p$-generalized principal eigenvalue.}' \end{itemize} The precise growth rate for the total population of SBM with $\alpha(x)=\beta(x)=1+|x|^p$ for $p\in[0,2]$ is given in this paper.