We consider Markov processes that alternate continuous motions and jumps in a general locally compact Polish space. Starting from a mechanistic construction, a first contribution of this article is to provide conditions on the dynamics so that the associated transition kernel forms a Feller semigroup, and to deduce the corresponding infinitesimal generator. As a second contribution, we investigate the ergodic properties in the special case where the jumps consist of births and deaths, a situation observed in several applications including epidemiology, ecology, and microbiology. Based on a coupling argument, we obtain conditions for convergence to a stationary measure with a geometric rate of convergence. Throughout the article, we illustrate our results using general examples of systems of interacting particles in $\mathbb{R}^d$ with births and deaths. We show that in some cases the stationary measure can be made explicit and corresponds to a Gibbs measure on a compact subset of $\mathbb{R}^d$. Our examples include in particular Gibbs measures associated to repulsive Lennard-Jones potentials and to Riesz potentials.

Let $(X_k)_{k\geq 0}$ be a stationary and ergodic process with joint distribution $\mu $, where the random variables $X_k$ take values in a finite set $\mathcal {A}$. Let $R_n$ be the first time this process repeats its first n symbols of output. It is well known that $({1}/{n})\log R_n$ converges almost surely to the entropy of the process. Refined properties of $R_n$ (large deviations, multifractality, etc) are encoded in the return-time $L^q$-spectrum defined as

provided the limit exists. We consider the case where $(X_k)_{k\geq 0}$ is distributed according to the equilibrium state of a potential with summable variation, and we prove that

where $P((1-q)\varphi )$ is the topological pressure of $(1-q)\varphi $, the supremum is taken over all shift-invariant measures, and $q_\varphi ^*$ is the unique solution of $P((1-q)\varphi ) =\sup _\eta \int \varphi \,d\eta $. Unexpectedly, this spectrum does not coincide with the $L^q$-spectrum of $\mu _\varphi $, which is $P((1-q)\varphi )$, and it does not coincide with the waiting-time $L^q$-spectrum in general. In fact, the return-time $L^q$-spectrum coincides with the waiting-time $L^q$-spectrum if and only if the equilibrium state of $\varphi $ is the measure of maximal entropy. As a by-product, we also improve the large deviation asymptotics of $({1}/{n})\log R_n$.

In this paper we discuss various aspects of invariant measures for nonlinear Hamiltonian partial differential equations (PDEs). In particular, we show almost-sure global existence for some Hamiltonian PDEs with initial data of the form ‘a smooth deterministic function + a rough random perturbation’ as a corollary to the Cameron–Martin theorem and known almost-sure global existence results with respect to Gaussian measures on spaces of functions.

Let M be acomplete Riemannian manifold, M ∈ ℕ andp ≥ 1. Weprove that almost everywhere on x = (x1,...,xN) ∈ MNfor Lebesgue measure in MN, the measure \hbox{$\di \mu(x)=\f1N\sum_{k=1}^N\d_{x_k}$}$\mathit{\mu }\mathrm{\left(}\mathit{x}\mathrm{\right)}\mathrm{=}\frac{\mathrm{1}}{\mathit{N}}\sum _{\mathit{k}\mathrm{=}\mathrm{1}}^{\mathit{N}}{\mathit{\delta }}_{{\mathit{x}}_{\mathit{k}}}$ has a unique p–mean ep(x).As a consequence, if X = (X1,...,XN)is a MN-valued randomvariable with absolutely continuous law, then almost surely μ(X(ω)) has aunique p–mean. In particular if (Xn)n ≥ 1is an independent sample of an absolutely continuous law in M, then the processep,n(ω) = ep(X1(ω),...,Xn(ω))is well-defined. Assume M is compact and consider a probability measureν inM. Usingpartial simulated annealing, we define a continuous semimartingale which converges inprobability to the set of minimizers of the integral of distance at power p with respect toν. When theset is a singleton, it converges to the p–mean.

The purpose of the paper is to study the asymptotic geometry of a smooth-grained Boolean model (X [t])t≥0 restricted to a bounded domain as the intensity parameter t goes to ∞. Our approach is based on investigating the asymptotic properties as t → ∞ of the random sets X [t;β], β≥0, defined as the Gibbsian modifications of X [t] with the Hamiltonian given by βtμ(·), where μ is a certain normalized measure on the setting space. We show that our model exhibits a phase transition at a certain critical value of the inverse temperature β and we prove that at higher temperatures the behaviour of X [t;β] is qualitatively very similar to that of X [t] but it becomes essentially different in the low-temperature region. From these facts we derive information about the asymptotic properties of the original process X [t]. The results obtained include large- and moderate-deviation principles. We conclude the paper with an example application of our methods to analyse the asymptotic moderate-deviation properties of convex hulls of large uniform samples on a multidimensional ball. To translate the above problem to the Boolean model setting considered we use an appropriate representation of convex sets in terms of their support functions.

We study the long-run behaviour of interactive Markov chains on infinite product spaces. The behaviour at a single site is influenced by the local situation in some neighbourhood and by a random signal about the average situation throughout the whole system. The asymptotic behaviour of such Markov chains is analyzed on the microscopic level and on the macroscopic level of empirical fields. We give sufficient conditions for convergence on the macroscopic level. Combining a convergence result from the theory of random systems with complete connections with a perturbation of the Dobrushin-Vasserstein contraction technique, we show that macroscopic convergence implies that the underlying microscopic process has local asymptotic loss of memory.