arXiv subjects

Sean Ledger

Publications and source records attributed to Sean Ledger.

9 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2024

The supercooled Stefan problem with transport noise: weak solutions and blow-up

We derive two weak formulations for the supercooled Stefan problem with transport noise on a half-line: one captures a continuously evolving system, while the other resolves blow-ups by allowing for jump discontinuities in the evolution of the temperature profile and the freezing front. For the first formulation, we establish a probabilistic representation in terms of a conditional McKean--Vlasov problem, and we then show that there is finite time blow-up with positive probability when part of the initial temperature profile is supercooled below a critical value. On the other hand, the system is shown to evolve continuously when the initial profile is everywhere above this value. In the presence of blow-ups, we show that the conditional McKean--Vlasov problem provides global solutions of the second weak formulation. Finally, we identify a solution of minimal temperature increase over time and we show that its discontinuities are characterised by a natural resolution of emerging instabilities with respect to an infinitesimal external heat transfer.

math.PR↗

arXiv2018

Uniqueness for contagious McKean--Vlasov systems in the weak feedback regime

We present a simple uniqueness argument for a collection of McKean-Vlasov problems that have seen recent interest. Our first result shows that, in the weak feedback regime, there is global uniqueness for a very general class of random drivers. By weak feedback we mean the case where the contagion parameters are small enough to prevent blow-ups in solutions. Next, we specialise to a Brownian driver and show how the same techniques can be extended to give short-time uniqueness after blow-ups, regardless of the feedback strength. The heart of our approach is a surprisingly simple probabilistic comparison argument that is robust in the sense that it does not ask for any regularity of the solutions.

math.PR↗

arXiv2018

Diffusion and superdiffusion in lattice models of colliding particles with stored momentum

We introduce two discrete models of a collection of colliding particles with stored momentum and study the asymptotic growth of the mean-square displacement of an active particle. We prove that the models are superdiffusive in one dimension (with power law correction) and diffusive in three and higher dimensions. In two dimensions we demonstrate superdiffusivity (with logarithmic correction) for certain anisotropic initial conditions.

math.PR↗

arXiv2018

At the Mercy of the Common Noise: Blow-ups in a Conditional McKean--Vlasov Problem

We extend a model of positive feedback and contagion in large mean-field systems, by introducing a common source of noise driven by Brownian motion. Although the driving dynamics are continuous, the positive feedback effect can lead to `blow-up' phenomena whereby solutions develop jump-discontinuities. Our main results are twofold and concern the conditional McKean--Vlasov formulation of the model. First and foremost, we show that there are global solutions to this McKean--Vlasov problem, which can be realised as limit points of a motivating particle system with common noise. Furthermore, we derive results on the occurrence of blow-ups, thereby showing how these events can be triggered or prevented by the pathwise realisations of the common noise.

math.PR↗

arXiv2018

Random walk on the randomly-oriented Manhattan lattice

In the randomly-oriented Manhattan lattice, every line in $\mathbb{Z}^d$ is assigned a uniform random direction. We consider the directed graph whose vertex set is $\mathbb{Z}^d$ and whose edges connect nearest neighbours, but only in the direction fixed by the line orientations. Random walk on this directed graph chooses uniformly from the $d$ legal neighbours at each step. We prove that this walk is superdiffusive in two and three dimensions. The model is diffusive in four and more dimensions.

math.PR↗

arXiv2018

A McKean--Vlasov equation with positive feedback and blow-ups

We study a McKean--Vlasov equation arising from a mean-field model of a particle system with positive feedback. As particles hit a barrier they cause the other particles to jump in the direction of the barrier and this feedback mechanism leads to the possibility that the system can exhibit contagious blow-ups. Using a fixed-point argument we construct a differentiable solution up to a first explosion time. Our main contribution is a proof of uniqueness in the class of c\`{a}dl\`{a}g functions, which confirms the validity of related propagation-of-chaos results in the literature. We extend the allowed initial conditions to include densities with any power law decay at the boundary, and connect the exponent of decay with the growth exponent of the solution in small time in a precise way. This takes us asymptotically close to the control on initial conditions required for a global solution theory. A novel minimality result and trapping technique are introduced to prove uniqueness.

math.PR↗

arXiv2016

A stochastic McKean--Vlasov equation for absorbing diffusions on the half-line

We study a finite system of diffusions on the half-line, absorbed when they hit zero, with a correlation effect that is controlled by the proportion of the processes that have been absorbed. As the number of processes in the system becomes large, the empirical measure of the population converges to the solution of a non-linear stochastic heat equation with Dirichlet boundary condition. The diffusion coefficients are allowed to have finitely many discontinuities (piecewise Lipschitz) and we prove pathwise uniqueness of solutions to the limiting stochastic PDE. As a corollary we obtain a representation of the limit as the unique solution to a stochastic McKean--Vlasov problem. Our techniques involve energy estimation in the dual of the first Sobolev space, which connects the regularity of solutions to their boundary behaviour, and tightness calculations in the Skorokhod M1 topology defined for distribution-valued processes, which exploits the monotonicity of the loss process $L$. The motivation for this model comes from the analysis of large portfolio credit problems in finance.

math.PR↗

arXiv2015

Skorokhod's M1 topology for distribution-valued processes

Skorokhod's M1 topology is defined for c\`adl\`ag paths taking values in the space of tempered distributions (more generally, in the dual of a countably Hilbertian nuclear space). Compactness and tightness characterisations are derived which allow us to study a collection of stochastic processes through their projections on the familiar space of real-valued c\`adl\`ag processes. It is shown how this topological space can be used in analysing the convergence of empirical process approximations to distribution-valued evolution equations with Dirichlet boundary conditions.

math.PR↗

arXiv2013

Sharp regularity near an absorbing boundary for solutions to second order SPDEs in a half-line with constant coefficients

We prove that the weak version of the SPDE problem \begin{align*} dV_{t}(x) & = [-\mu V_{t}'(x) + \frac{1}{2} (\sigma_{M}^{2} + \sigma_{I}^{2})V_{t}"(x)]dt - \sigma_{M} V_{t}'(x)dW^{M}_{t}, \quad x > 0, \\ V_{t}(0) &= 0 \end{align*} with a specified bounded initial density, $V_{0}$, and $W$ a standard Brownian motion, has a unique solution in the class of finite-measure valued processes. The solution has a smooth density process which has a probabilistic representation and shows degeneracy near the absorbing boundary. In the language of weighted Sobolev spaces, we describe the precise order of integrability of the density and its derivatives near the origin, and we relate this behaviour to a two-dimensional Brownian motion in a wedge whose angle is a function of the ratio $\sigma_{M}/\sigma_{I}$. Our results are sharp: we demonstrate that better regularity is unattainable.

math.PR↗