COALESCING AND BRANCHING SIMPLE SYMMETRIC EXCLUSION PROCESS

Motivated by kinetically constrained interacting particle systems (KCM), we consider a reversible coalescing and branching simple exclusion process on a general finite graph G = (V, E) dual to the biased voter model on G. Our main goal is tight bounds on its logarithmic Sobolev constant and relaxation time, with particular focus on the delicate slightly supercritical regime in which the equilibrium density of particles tends to zero as vertical bar V vertical bar -> infinity. Our results allow us to recover very directly and improve to l(p)-mixing, p >= 2, and to more general graphs, the mixing time results of Pillai and Smith for the Fredrickson-Andersen one spin facilitated (FA-1f) KCM on the discrete d-dimensional torus. In view of applications to the more complex FA-jf KCM, j > 1, we also extend part of the analysis to an analogous process with a more general product state space.