Fixation for distributed clustering processes

Abstract

AbstractWe study a discrete‐time resource flow in \input amssym ${\Bbb Z}^d $ where wealthier vertices attract the resources of their less rich neighbors. For any translation‐invariant probability distribution of initial resource quantities, we prove that the flow at each vertex terminates after finitely many steps. This answers (a generalized version of) a question posed by van den Berg and Meester in 1991. The proof uses the mass transport principle and extends to other graphs. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.