A many-body field theory approach to stochastic models in population biology.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Many models used in theoretical ecology, or mathematical epidemiology are stochastic, and may also be spatially-explicit. Techniques from quantum field theory have been used before in reaction-diffusion systems, principally to investigate their critical behavior. Here we argue that they make many calculations easier and are a possible starting point for new approximations.

Methodology

We review the many-body field formalism for Markov processes and illustrate how to apply it to a 'Brownian bug' population model, and to an epidemic model. We show how the master equation and the moment hierarchy can both be written in particularly compact forms. The introduction of functional methods allows the systematic computation of the effective action, which gives the dynamics

SUBMITTER: Dodd PJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2734401 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature