Nucleation and growth in two dimensions

Bootstrap percolation is a type of cellular automaton on graphs, introduced as a simple model of the dynamics of ferromagnetism. Vertices in a graph can be in one of two states: `healthy' or `infected' and from an initial configuration of states, healthy vertices become infected by local rules. While the usual bootstrap processes are monotone in the sets of infected vertices, in this paper, a modification is examined in which infected vertices can return to a healthy state. V...

In r-neighbour bootstrap percolation on a graph G, a set of initially infected vertices A \subset V(G) is chosen independently at random, with density p, and new vertices are subsequently infected if they have at least r infected neighbours. The set A is said to percolate if eventually all vertices are infected. Our aim is to understand this process on the grid, [n]^d, for arbitrary functions n = n(t), d = d(t) and r = r(t), as t -> infinity. The main question is to determine...

In this work we investigate a bootstrap percolation process on random graphs generated by a random graph model which combines preferential attachment and edge insertion between previously existing vertices. The probabilities of adding either a new vertex or a new connection between previously added vertices are time dependent and given by a function $f$ called the edge-step function. We show that under integrability conditions over the edge-step function the graphs are highly...

In $r$-neighbor bootstrap percolation on the vertex set of a graph $G$, a set $A$ of initially infected vertices spreads by infecting, at each time step, all uninfected vertices with at least $r$ previously infected neighbors. When the elements of $A$ are chosen independently with some probability $p$, it is natural to study the critical probability $p_c(G,r)$ at which it becomes likely that all of $V(G)$ will eventually become infected. Improving a result of Balogh, Bollob\'...

Random growth models are fundamental objects in modern probability theory, have given rise to new mathematics, and have numerous applications, including tumor growth and fluid flow in porous media. In this article, we introduce some of the typical models and the basic analytical questions and properties, like existence of asymptotic shapes, fluctuations of infection times, and relations to particle systems. We then specialize to models built on percolation (first-passage perc...

Bootstrap Percolation is a process defined on a graph which begins with an initial set of infected vertices. In each subsequent round, an uninfected vertex becomes infected if it is adjacent to at least $r$ previously infected vertices. If an initially infected set of vertices, $A_0$, begins a process in which every vertex of the graph eventually becomes infected, then we say that $A_0$ percolates. In this paper we investigate bootstrap percolation as it relates to graph dist...

We investigate the behaviour of $r$-neighbourhood bootstrap percolation on the binomial $k$-uniform random hypergraph $H_k(n,p)$ for given integers $k\geq 2$ and $r\geq 2$. In $r$-neighbourhood bootstrap percolation, infection spreads through the hypergraph, starting from a set of initially infected vertices, and in each subsequent step of the process every vertex with at least $r$ infected neighbours becomes infected. For our analysis the set of initially infected vertices i...

Following Bradonji\'c and Saniee, we study a model of bootstrap percolation on the Gilbert random geometric graph on the $2$-dimensional torus. In this model, the expected number of vertices of the graph is $n$, and the expected degree of a vertex is $a\log n$ for some fixed $a>1$. Each vertex is added with probability $p$ to a set $A_0$ of initially infected vertices. Vertices subsequently become infected if they have at least $ \theta a \log n $ infected neighbours. Here $p...

Bootstrap percolation has been used effectively to model phenomena as diverse as emergence of magnetism in materials, spread of infection, diffusion of software viruses in computer networks, adoption of new technologies, and emergence of collective action and cultural fads in human societies. It is defined on an (arbitrary) network of interacting agents whose state is determined by the state of their neighbors according to a threshold rule. In a typical setting, bootstrap per...

We examine bootstrap percolation in d-dimensional, directed metric graphs in the context of recent measurements of firing dynamics in 2D neuronal cultures. There are two regimes, depending on the graph size N. Large metric graphs are ignited by the occurrence of critical nuclei, which initially occupy an infinitesimal fraction, f_* -> 0, of the graph and then explode throughout a finite fraction. Smaller metric graphs are effectively random in the sense that their ignition re...