Andrey Sarantsev

Infinite systems of competing Brownian particles

Consider a system of infinitely many Brownian particles on the real line. At any moment, these particles can be ranked from the bottom upward. Each particle moves as a Brownian motion with drift and diffusion coefficients depending on its current rank. The gaps between consecutive particles form the (infinite-dimensional) gap process. We find a stationary distribution for the gap process. We also show that if the initial value of the gap process is stochastically larger than this stationary distribution, this process converges back to this distribution as time goes to infinity. This continues the work by Pal and Pitman (2008). Also, this includes infinite systems with asymmetric collisions, similar to the finite ones from Karatzas, Pal and Shkolnikov (2016).

Diverse market models of competing Brownian particles with splits and mergers

We study models of regulatory breakup, in the spirit of Strong and Fouque [Ann. Finance 7 (2011) 349-374] but with a fluctuating number of companies. An important class of market models is based on systems of competing Brownian particles: each company has a capitalization whose logarithm behaves as a Brownian motion with drift and diffusion coefficients depending on its current rank. We study such models with a fluctuating number of companies: If at some moment the share of the total market capitalization of a company reaches a fixed level, then the company is split into two parts of random size. Companies are also allowed to merge, when an exponential clock rings. We find conditions under which this system is nonexplosive (i.e., the number of companies remains finite at all times) and diverse, yet does not admit arbitrage opportunities.

Multiple collisions in systems of competing Brownian particles

Consider a finite system of competing Brownian particles on the real line. Each particle moves as a Brownian motion, with drift and diffusion coefficients depending only on its current rank relative to the other particles. We find a sufficient condition for a.s. absence of a total collision (when all particles collide) and of other types of collisions, say of the three lowest-ranked particles. This continues the work of Ichiba, Karatzas, Shkolnikov (2013) and Sarantsev (2015).

Stationary gap distributions for infinite systems of competing Brownian particles

Consider the infinite Atlas model: a semi-infinite collection of particles driven by independent standard Brownian motions with zero drifts, except for the bottom-ranked particle which receives unit drift. We derive a continuum one-parameter family of product-of-exponentials stationary gap distributions, with exponentially growing density at infinity. This result shows that there are infinitely many stationary gap distributions for the Atlas model, and hence resolves a conjecture of Pal and Pitman (2008) in the negative. This result is further generalized for infinite systems of competing Brownian particles with generic rank-based drifts.

Penalty method for reflected diffusions on the half-line

Consider a reflected diffusion on the positive half-line. We approximate it by solutions of stochastic differential equations using the penalty method: We emulate the ‘hard barrier’ of reflection by a ‘soft barrier’ of a large drift coefficient, which compells the diffusion to return to the positive half-line. The main tool of the proof is convergence of scale functions.

Yet another condition for absence of collisions for competing Brownian particles

Consider a finite system of rank-based competing Brownian particles, where the drift and diffusion of each particle depend only on its current rank relative to other particles. We present a simple sufficient condition for absence of multiple collisions of a given order, continuing the earlier work by Bruggeman and Sarantsev (2015). Unlike in that paper, this new condition works even for infinite systems.