An interacting particle model with compact hierarchical structure

We present a model interacting particle system with a population of fixed size in which particles wander randomly in space, and pairs interact at a rate determined by a reaction kernel with finite range. The pairwise interaction randomly selects one of the particles (the victim) and instantly transfers it to the position of the other (the killer), thus maintaining the total number. The special feature of the model is that it possesses a closed hierarchical structure in which the statistical moments of the governing master equation lead to closed equations for the reduced distribution functions (the concentration, pair correlation function, and so on). In one spatial dimension, we show that persistent spatial correlations (clusters) arise in this model and we characterize the dynamics in terms of analytical properties of the pair correlation function. As the range of the reaction kernel is increased, the dynamics varies from an ensemble of largely independent random walkers at small range to tightly bound clusters with longer-range reaction kernels.