A probabilistic view on the long-time behaviour of growth-fragmentation semigroups with bounded fragmentation rates

Institut für Mathematik, Universität Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland.

^* Corresponding author: benedetta.cavalli@math.uzh.ch

Received: 20 December 2019
Accepted: 3 May 2021

Abstract

The growth-fragmentation equation models systems of particles that grow and reproduce as time passes. An important question concerns the asymptotic behaviour of its solutions. Bertoin and Watson (2018) developed a probabilistic approach relying on the Feynman-Kac formula, that enabled them to answer to this question for sublinear growth rates. This assumption on the growth ensures that microscopic particles remain microscopic. In this work, we go further in the analysis, assuming bounded fragmentations and allowing arbitrarily small particles to reach macroscopic mass in finite time. We establish necessary and sufficient conditions on the coefficients of the equation that ensure Malthusian behaviour with exponential speed of convergence to the asymptotic profile. Furthermore, we provide an explicit expression of the latter.