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Douglas Rizzolo

Publications and source records attributed to Douglas Rizzolo.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
arXiv2026

The Oldest Allele in a Moran Model

We study an infinitely many neutral alleles Moran model where the allelic frequencies are recorded in increasing order of the ages of the alleles. Using this representation, we show that in stationarity the number of individuals with the oldest allelic type evolves as a Markov process, even across times when the oldest allele goes extinct (and is immediately replaced by the formerly second oldest allele). We also find the diffusive limit of the oldest allele chain.

math.PR↗
arXiv2025

Limit Theorems for Fixed Point Biased Pattern Avoiding Involutions

We study fixed point biased involutions that avoid a pattern. For every pattern of length three we obtain limit theorems for the asymptotic distribution of the (appropriately centered and scaled) number of fixed points of a random fixed point biased involution avoiding that pattern. When the pattern being avoided is either $321$, $132$, or $213$, we find a phase transition depending on the strength of the bias. We also obtain a limit theorem for distribution of fixed points when the pattern is $123\cdots k(k+1)$ for any $k$ and partial results when the pattern is $(k+1)k\cdots 321$.

math.PR↗
arXiv2023

The Aldous diffusion: a stationary evolution of the Brownian CRT

Motivated by a down-up Markov chain on cladograms, David Aldous conjectured in 1999 that there exists a "diffusion on continuum trees" whose mass partitions at any finite number of branch points evolve as Wright-Fisher diffusions with some negative mutation rates, until some branch point disappears. Building on previous work on interval-partition-valued processes, we construct this conjectured process via a consistent system of stationary evolutions of binary trees with k labeled leaves and edges decorated with interval partitions. The interval partitions are scaled Poisson-Dirichlet interval partitions whose interval lengths record subtree masses. They also possess a diversity property that captures certain distances in the continuum tree. Continuously evolving diversities give access to continuously evolving continuum tree distances. The pathwise construction allows us to study this "Aldous diffusion" in the Gromov-Hausdorff-Prokhorov space of rooted, weighted R-trees. We establish the simple Markov property and path-continuity. The Aldous diffusion is stationary with the distribution of the Brownian continuum random tree. While the Brownian CRT is a.s. binary, we show that there is a dense null set of exceptional times when the Aldous diffusion has a ternary branch point, including stopping times at which the strong Markov property fails. Our construction relates to the two-parameter Chinese restaurant process, branching processes, and stable Lévy processes, among other connections. Wright-Fisher diffusions and the aforementioned processes of Poisson-Dirichlet interval partitions arise as interesting projections of the Aldous diffusion. Finally, one can embed Aldous's stationary down-up Markov chain on cladograms in the Aldous diffusion and hence address a related conjecture by David Aldous by establishing a scaling limit theorem.

math.PR↗
arXiv2022

Diffusions on a space of interval partitions: The two-parameter model

We introduce and study interval partition diffusions with Poisson--Dirichlet$(α,θ)$ stationary distribution for parameters $α\in(0,1)$ and $θ\ge 0$. This extends previous work on the cases $(α,0)$ and $(α,α)$ and builds on our recent work on measure-valued diffusions. Our methods for dealing with general $θ\ge 0$ allow us to strengthen previous work on the special cases to include initial interval partitions with dust. In contrast to the measure-valued setting, we can show that this extended process is a Feller process improving on the Hunt property established in that setting. These processes can be viewed as diffusions on the boundary of a branching graph of integer compositions. Indeed, by studying their infinitesimal generator on suitable quasi-symmetric functions, we relate them to diffusions obtained as scaling limits of composition-valued up-down chains.

math.PR↗
arXiv2022

The leftmost column of ordered Chinese Restaurant Process up-down chains: intertwining and convergence

Recently there has been significant interest in constructing ordered analogues of Petrov's two-parameter extension of Ethier and Kurtz's infinitely-many-neutral-alleles diffusion model. One method for constructing these processes goes through taking an appropriate diffusive limit of Markov chains on integer compositions called ordered Chinese Restaurant Process up-down chains. The resulting processes are diffusions whose state space is the set of open subsets of the open unit interval. In this paper we begin to study nontrivial aspects of the order structure of these diffusions. In particular, for a certain choice of parameters, we take the diffusive limit of the size of the first component of ordered Chinese Restaurant Process up-down chains and describe the generator of the limiting process. We then relate this to the size of the leftmost maximal open subset of the open-set valued diffusions. This is challenging because the function taking an open set to the size of its leftmost maximal open subset is discontinuous. Our methods are based on establishing intertwining relations between the processes we study.

math.PR↗
arXiv2021

Diffusive limits of two-parameter ordered Chinese Restaurant Process up-down chains

We construct a two-parameter family of Feller diffusions on the set of open subsets of $(0,1)$ that arise as diffusive limits of two-parameter ordered Chinese Restaurant Process up-down chains. The diffusions we construct are natural ordered analogues of Petrov's two-parameter extension of Ethier and Kurtz's infinitely-many-neutral-alleles diffusion model. Recently, there has been significant interest in ordered analogues of the diffusions Petrov constructed. Existing methods for constructing such processes have been based on pathwise methods using marked Lévy processes and an outstanding conjecture about these processes is that they are, in fact, the diffusive limit of the ordered Chinese Restaurant Process up-down chains that we consider here. We make progress on this conjecture by showing that the diffusive limit of the ordered Chinese Restaurant Process up-down chains exists. Moreover, our methods yield a simple, explicit description of the generator of the limiting processes on a core described in terms of quasisymmetric functions.

math.PR↗
arXiv2021

Ranked masses in two-parameter Fleming-Viot diffusions

In previous work, we constructed Fleming--Viot-type measure-valued diffusions (and diffusions on a space of interval partitions of the unit interval $[0,1]$) that are stationary with the Poisson--Dirichlet laws with parameters $α\in(0,1)$ and $θ\geq 0$. In this paper, we complete the proof that these processes resolve a conjecture by Feng and Sun (2010) by showing that the processes of ranked atom sizes (or of ranked interval lengths) of these diffusions are members of a two-parameter family of diffusions introduced by Petrov (2009), extending a model by Ethier and Kurtz (1981) in the case $α=0$. The latter diffusions are continuum limits of up-down Chinese restaurant processes.

math.PR↗
arXiv2020

A two-parameter family of measure-valued diffusions with Poisson-Dirichlet stationary distributions

We give a pathwise construction of a two-parameter family of purely-atomic-measure-valued diffusions in which ranked masses of atoms are stationary with the Poisson-Dirichlet$(α,θ)$ distributions, for $α\in (0,1)$ and $θ\ge 0$. This resolves a conjecture of Feng and Sun (2010). We build on our previous work on $(α,0)$- and $(α,α)$-interval partition evolutions. Indeed, we first extract a self-similar superprocess from the levels of stable processes whose jumps are decorated with squared Bessel excursions and distinct allelic types. We complete our construction by time-change and normalisation to unit mass. In a companion paper, we show that the ranked masses of the measure-valued processes evolve according to a two-parameter family of diffusions introduced by Petrov (2009), extending work of Ethier and Kurtz (1981). These ranked-mass diffusions arise as continuum limits of up-down Markov chains on Chinese restaurant processes.

math.PR↗
arXiv2019

Scaling limits of permutations avoiding long decreasing sequences

We determine the scaling limit for permutations conditioned to have longest decreasing subsequence of length at most $d$. These permutations are also said to avoid the pattern $(d+1)d \cdots 2 1$ and they can be written as a union of $d$ increasing subsequences. We show that these increasing subsequences can be chosen so that, after proper scaling, and centering, they converge in distribution. As the size of the permutations tends to infinity, the distribution of functions generated by the permutations converges to the eigenvalue process of a traceless $d\times d$ Hermitian Brownian bridge.

math.PR↗
arXiv2019

Diffusions on a space of interval partitions: Poisson-Dirichlet stationary distributions

We introduce diffusions on a space of interval partitions of the unit interval that are stationary with the Poisson-Dirichlet laws with parameters $(α,0)$ and $(α,α)$. The construction has two steps. The first is a general construction of interval partition processes obtained previously, by decorating the jumps of a Lévy process with independent excursions. Here, we focus on the second step, which requires explicit transition kernels and what we call pseudo-stationarity. This allows us to study processes obtained from the original construction via scaling and time-change. In a sequel paper, we establish connections to diffusions on decreasing sequences introduced by Ethier and Kurtz (1981) and Petrov (2009). The latter diffusions are continuum limits of up-down Markov chains on Chinese restaurant processes. Our construction is also a step towards resolving longstanding conjectures by Feng and Sun on measure-valued Poisson-Dirichlet diffusions, and by Aldous on a continuum-tree-valued diffusion.

math.PR↗
arXiv2019

Diffusions on a space of interval partitions: construction from marked Lévy processes

Consider a spectrally positive Stable($1+α$) process whose jumps we interpret as lifetimes of individuals. We mark the jumps by continuous excursions assigning "sizes" varying during the lifetime. As for Crump-Mode-Jagers processes (with "characteristics"), we consider for each level the collection of individuals alive. We arrange their "sizes" at the crossing height from left to right to form an interval partition. We study the continuity and Markov properties of the interval-partition-valued process indexed by level. From the perspective of the Stable($1+α$) process, this yields new theorems of Ray-Knight-type. From the perspective of branching processes, this yields new, self-similar models with dense sets of birth and death times of (mostly short-lived) individuals. This paper feeds into projects resolving conjectures by Feng and Sun (2010) on the existence of certain measure-valued diffusions with Poisson--Dirichlet stationary laws, and by Aldous (1999) on the existence of a continuum-tree-valued diffusion.

math.PR↗
arXiv2019

Metrics on sets of interval partitions with diversity

We first consider interval partitions whose complements are Lebesgue-null and introduce a complete metric that induces the same topology as the Hausdorff distance (between complements). This is done using correspondences between intervals. Further restricting to interval partitions with alpha-diversity, we then adjust the metric to incorporate diversities. We show that this second metric space is Lusin. An important feature of this topology is that path-continuity in this topology implies the continuous evolution of diversities. This is important in related work on tree-valued stochastic processes where diversities are branch lengths.

math.PR↗
arXiv2019

Determinants of Seidel matrices and a conjecture of Ghorbani

Let $G_n$ be a simple graph on $V_n=\{v_1,\dots, v_n\}$. The Seidel matrix $S(G_n)$ of $G_n$ is the $n\times n$ matrix whose $(ij)$'th entry, for $i\neq j$ is $-1$ if $v_i\sim v_j$ and $1$ otherwise, and whose diagonal entries are $0$. We show that the proportion of simple graphs $G_n$ such that $\det(S(G_n))\geq n-1$ tends to one as $n$ tends to infinity.

math.CO↗
arXiv2018

Aldous diffusion I: a projective system of continuum $k$-tree evolutions

The Aldous diffusion is a conjectured Markov process on the space of real trees that is the continuum analogue of discrete Markov chains on binary trees. We construct this conjectured process via a consistent system of stationary evolutions of binary trees with $k$ labeled leaves and edges decorated with diffusions on a space of interval partitions constructed in previous work by the same authors. This pathwise construction allows us to study and compute path properties of the Aldous diffusion including evolutions of projected masses and distances between branch points. A key part of proving the consistency of the projective system is Rogers and Pitman's notion of intertwining.

math.PR↗
arXiv2018

Interval partition evolutions with emigration related to the Aldous diffusion

We construct a stationary Markov process corresponding to the evolution of masses and distances of subtrees along the spine from the root to a branch point in a conjectured stationary, continuum random tree-valued diffusion that was proposed by David Aldous. As a corollary this Markov process induces a recurrent extension, with Dirichlet stationary distribution, of a Wright-Fisher diffusion for which zero is an exit boundary of the coordinate processes. This extends previous work of Pal who argued a Wright-Fisher limit for the three-mass process under the conjectured Aldous diffusion until the disappearance of the branch point. In particular, the construction here yields the first stationary, Markovian projection of the conjectured diffusion. Our construction follows from that of a pair of interval partition-valued diffusions that were previously introduced by the current authors as continuum analogues of down-up chains on ordered Chinese restaurants with parameters (1/2,1/2) and (1/2,0). These two diffusions are given by an underlying Crump-Mode-Jagers branching process, respectively with or without immigration. In particular, we adapt the previous construction to build a continuum analogue of a down-up ordered Chinese restaurant process with the unusual parameters (1/2,-1/2), for which the underlying branching process has emigration.

math.PR↗