Collision and non-collision for diffusions on configuration space

Abstract

We develop criteria for collision and non-collision of reversible infinitely many interacting diffusion processes in the real line. The approach is potential-theoretic and is based on capacity estimates for symmetric Dirichlet forms on the configuration space. Our main results are model-independent in the sense that no determinantal or Pfaffian structure, prescribed interaction potential, or explicit labelled stochastic differential equation is required. The non-collision criterion involves only the second and third correlation functions of the reversible measure, whereas the collision criterion is based on a local lower bound for a finite-volume conditional density of the reversible measure. As an application, we identify the sharp collision threshold for the diffusion associated with the $\mathsf{Sine}_\beta$-symmetric Dirichlet form: the collision set is polar if and only if $\beta\ge 1$. This provides an infinite-particle counterpart of the classical collision threshold for the finite-particle Dyson Brownian motion with inverse temperature $\beta$.