Revisiting the Contact Model with Diffusion Beyond the Conventional Methods

Abstract: The contact process is a non-equilibrium Hamiltonian model that, even in one dimension, lacks an exact solution and has been extensively studied via Monte Carlo simulations, both in steady-state and time-dependent scenarios. Although the effects of particle mobility/diffusion on criticality have been preliminarily investigated, they remain incompletely understood. In this work, we examine how the critical rate of the model varies with the probability of particle mobility. By analyzing different stochastic evolutions of the system, we employ two modern approaches: 1) Random Matrix Theory (RMT): By building on the success of RMT, particularly Wishart-like matrices, in studying statistical physics of systems with up-down symmetry via magnetization dynamics [R. da Silva, IJMPC 2022], we demonstrate its applicability to models with an absorbing state. 2) Optimized Temporal Power Laws: By using short-time dynamics, we optimize power laws derived from ensemble-averaged evolutions of the system. Both methods consistently reveal that the critical rate decays with mobility according to a simple Belehradek function. Additionally, a straightforward mean-field analysis supports the decay of the critical parameter with mobility, although it predicts a simpler linear dependence.