Probability and Stochastic Analysis Seminar  RSS

18/03/2026, 16:00 — 17:00 Europe/Lisbon — Instituto Superior Técnicohttps://tecnico.ulisboa.pt
Fernando Cordero, BOKU University

From Wright–Fisher Population Dynamics to Nonlinear Mean-Field Limits

How do competing pathogen strains evolve within and across a population of hosts? We propose a simple stochastic model in which the type composition within each host evolves according to a family of Markov kernels. When hosts evolve independently, the model reveals a moment duality with genealogies related to the Ancestral Selection Graph and, under suitable scaling, converges to a Wright–Fisher diffusion with drift. When hosts interact through the population distribution, the system becomes weakly interacting. We prove propagation of chaos and show that the dynamics of a typical host converge to a McKean–Vlasov diffusion. As an illustration, we consider mutation rates depending on the current population state and study ergodicity of the resulting mean-field dynamics. This talk is based on join work with Leonardo Videla (Universidad de Santiago) and Héctor Olivero (Universidad de Valparaiso).


Except for a few of the oldest sessions these are from the Seminário de Probabilidade e Mecânica Estatística at IMPA which is co-sponsored by several institutions, in particular Instituto Superior Técnico.