Maximal displacement and population growth for branching Brownian motions

Abstract

We study the maximal displacement and related population for a branching Brownian motion in Euclidean space in terms of the principal eigenvalue of an associated Schrödinger type operator. We first determine their growth rates on the survival event. We then establish the upper deviation for the maximal displacement under the possibility of extinction. Under the nonextinction condition, we further discuss the decay rate of the upper deviation probability and the population growth at the critical phase.