Over the past 20 years, the study of superprocesses has expanded into a major industry and can now be regarded as a central theme in modern probability theory. This book is intended as a rapid introduction to the subject, geared toward graduate students and researchers in stochastic analysis. A variety of different approaches to the superprocesses emerged over the last ten years. Yet no one approach superseded any others. In this book, readers are exposed to a number of different ways of thinking about the processes, and each is used to motivate some key results. The emphasis is on why results are true rather than on rigorous proof. Specific results are given, including extensive references to current literature for their general form.

This is the only book discussing multifractal properties of densities of stable superprocesses, containing latest achievements while also giving the reader a comprehensive picture of the state of the art in this area. It is a self-contained presentation of regularity properties of stable superprocesses and proofs of main results and can serve as an introductory text for a graduate course. There are many heuristic explanations of technically involved results and proofs and the reader can get a clear intuitive picture behind the results and techniques.

For about half a century, two classes of stochastic processes---Gaussian processes and processes with independent increments---have played an important role in the development of stochastic analysis and its applications. During the last decade, a third class---branching measure-valued (BMV) processes---has also been the subject of much research. A common feature of all three classes is that their finite-dimensional distributions are infinitely divisible, allowing the use of the powerful analytic tool of Laplace (or Fourier) transforms. All three classes, in an infinite-dimensional setting, provide means for study of physical systems with infinitely many degrees of freedom. This is the first monograph devoted to the theory of BMV processes. Dynkin first constructs a large class of BMV processes, called superprocesses, by passing to the limit from branching particle systems. Then he proves that, under certain restrictions, a general BMV process is a superprocess. A special chapter is devoted to the connections between superprocesses and a class of nonlinear partial differential equations recently discovered by Dynkin.

Sergei Kuznetsov is one of the top experts on measure valued branching processes (also known as “superprocesses”) and their connection to nonlinear partial differential operators. His research interests range from stochastic processes and partial differential equations to mathematical statistics, time series analysis and statistical software; he has over 90 papers published in international research journals. His most well known contribution to probability theory is the "Kuznetsov-measure." A conference honoring his 60th birthday has been organized at Boulder, Colorado in the summer of 2010, with the participation of Sergei Kuznetsov’s mentor and major co-author, Eugene Dynkin. The conference focused on topics related to superprocesses, branching diffusions and nonlinear partial differential equations. In particular, connections to the so-called “Kuznetsov-measure” were emphasized. Leading experts in the field as well as young researchers contributed to the conference. The meeting was organized by J. Englander and B. Rider (U. of Colorado).

This book provides a compact introduction to the theory of measure-valued branching processes, immigration processes and Ornstein–Uhlenbeck type processes. Measure-valued branching processes arise as high density limits of branching particle systems. The first part of the book gives an analytic construction of a special class of such processes, the Dawson–Watanabe superprocesses, which includes the finite-dimensional continuous-state branching process as an example. Under natural assumptions, it is shown that the superprocesses have Borel right realizations. Transformations are then used to derive the existence and regularity of several different forms of the superprocesses. This technique simplifies the constructions and gives useful new perspectives. Martingale problems of superprocesses are discussed under Feller type assumptions. The second part investigates immigration structures associated with the measure-valued branching processes. The structures are formulated by skew convolution semigroups, which are characterized in terms of infinitely divisible probability entrance laws. A theory of stochastic equations for one-dimensional continuous-state branching processes with or without immigration is developed, which plays a key role in the construction of measure flows of those processes. The third part of the book studies a class of Ornstein-Uhlenbeck type processes in Hilbert spaces defined by generalized Mehler semigroups, which arise naturally in fluctuation limit theorems of the immigration superprocesses. This volume is aimed at researchers in measure-valued processes, branching processes, stochastic analysis, biological and genetic models, and graduate students in probability theory and stochastic processes.

This volume contains lectures given at the Saint-Flour Summer School of Probability Theory during the period 8th-24th July, 1999. We thank the authors for all the hard work they accomplished. Their lectures are a work of reference in their domain. The School brought together 85 participants, 31 of whom gave a lecture concerning their research work. At the end of this volume you will find the list of participants and their papers. Finally, to facilitate research concerning previous schools we give here the number of the volume of "Lecture Notes" where they can be found: Lecture Notes in Mathematics 1975: n ° 539- 1971: n ° 307- 1973: n ° 390- 1974: n ° 480- 1979: n ° 876- 1976: n ° 598- 1977: n ° 678- 1978: n ° 774- 1980: n ° 929- 1981: n ° 976- 1982: n ° 1097- 1983: n ° 1117- 1988: n ° 1427- 1984: n ° 1180- 1985-1986 et 1987: n ° 1362- 1989: n ° 1464- 1990: n ° 1527- 1991: n ° 1541- 1992: n ° 1581- 1993: n ° 1608- 1994: n ° 1648- 1995: n ° 1690- 1996: n ° 1665- 1997: n ° 1717- 1998: n ° 1738- Lecture Notes in Statistics 1971: n ° 307- Table of Contents Part I Erwin Bolthausen: Large Deviations and Interacting Random Walks 1 On the construction of the three-dimensional polymer measure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 2 Self-attracting random walks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 3 One-dimensional pinning-depinning transitions. . . . . . . . . . . 105 References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Over the last fifteen years fractal geometry has established itself as a substantial mathematical theory in its own right. The interplay between fractal geometry, analysis and stochastics has highly influenced recent developments in mathematical modeling of complicated structures. This process has been forced by problems in these areas related to applications in statistical physics, biomathematics and finance. This book is a collection of survey articles covering many of the most recent developments, like Schramm-Loewner evolution, fractal scaling limits, exceptional sets for percolation, and heat kernels on fractals. The authors were the keynote speakers at the conference "Fractal Geometry and Stochastics IV" at Greifswald in September 2008.

Providing a broad overview of the current state of the art in probability theory and its applications, and featuring an article coauthored by Mark Yor, this volume contains contributions on branching processes, Lévy processes, random walks and martingales and their connection with, among other topics, rough paths, semi-groups, heat kernel asymptotics and mathematical finance.

The study of measure-valued processes in random environments has seen some intensive research activities in recent years whereby interesting nonlinear stochastic partial differential equations (SPDEs) were derived. Due to the nonlinearity and the non-Lipschitz continuity of their coefficients, new techniques and concepts have recently been developed for the study of such SPDEs. These include the conditional Laplace transform technique, the conditional mild solution, and the bridge between SPDEs and some kind of backward stochastic differential equations. This volume provides an introduction to these topics with the aim of attracting more researchers into this exciting and young area of research. It can be considered as the first book of its kind. The tools introduced and developed for the study of measure-valued processes in random environments can be used in a much broader area of nonlinear SPDEs.

This text presents an engaging exposition of the active field of high-dimensional percolation that will likely provide an impetus for future work. With over 90 exercises designed to enhance the reader’s understanding of the material, as well as many open problems, the book is aimed at graduate students and researchers who wish to enter the world of this rich topic. The text may also be useful in advanced courses and seminars, as well as for reference and individual study. Part I, consisting of 3 chapters, presents a general introduction to percolation, stating the main results, defining the central objects, and proving its main properties. No prior knowledge of percolation is assumed. Part II, consisting of Chapters 4–9, discusses mean-field critical behavior by describing the two main techniques used, namely, differential inequalities and the lace expansion. In Parts I and II, all results are proved, making this the first self-contained text discussing high-dime nsional percolation. Part III, consisting of Chapters 10–13, describes recent progress in high-dimensional percolation. Partial proofs and substantial overviews of how the proofs are obtained are given. In many of these results, the lace expansion and differential inequalities or their discrete analogues are central. Part IV, consisting of Chapters 14–16, features related models and further open problems, with a focus on the big picture.