Bootstrap Percolation on Homogeneous Trees Has 2 Phase Transitions

Abstract

We study the threshold θ bootstrap percolation model on the homogeneous tree with degree b+1, 2≤θ≤b, and initial density p. It is known that there exists a nontrivial critical value for p, which we call p _f , such that a) for p>p _f , the final bootstrapped configuration is fully occupied for almost every initial configuration, and b) if p<p _f , then for almost every initial configuration, the final bootstrapped configuration has density of occupied vertices less than 1. In this paper, we establish the existence of a distinct critical value for p, p _c , such that 0<p _c <p _f , with the following properties: 1) if p≤p _c , then for almost every initial configuration there is no infinite cluster of occupied vertices in the final bootstrapped configuration; 2) if p>p _c , then for almost every initial configuration there are infinite clusters of occupied vertices in the final bootstrapped configuration. Moreover, we show that 3) for p<p _c , the distribution of the occupied cluster size in the final bootstrapped configuration has an exponential tail; 4) at p=p _c , the expected occupied cluster size in the final bootstrapped configuration is infinite; 5) the probability of percolation of occupied vertices in the final bootstrapped configuration is continuous on [0,p _f ] and analytic on (p _c ,p _f ), admitting an analytic continuation from the right at p _c and, only in the case θ=b, also from the left at p _f .