Real-space renormalization for reaction-diffusion systems

Abstract

The stationary state of stochastic processes such as reaction-diffusion systems can be related to the ground state of a suitably defined quantum Hamiltonian. Using this analogy, we investigate the applicability of a real-space renormalization group approach, originally developed for quantum spin systems, to interacting particle systems. We apply the technique to an exactly solvable reaction-diffusion system and to the contact process (both in d = 1). In the former case, several exact results are recovered. For the contact process, surprisingly good estimates of critical parameters are obtained from a small-cell renormalization.