A bootstrap percolation process on a graph with n vertices is an ‘infection’ process evolving in rounds. Let $r \ge 2$ be fixed. Initially, there is a subset of infected vertices. In each subsequent round, every uninfected vertex that has at least r infected neighbors becomes infected as well and remains so forever.

We consider this process in the case where the underlying graph is an inhomogeneous random graph whose kernel is of rank one. Assuming that initially every vertex is infected independently with probability $p \in (0,1]$, we provide a law of large numbers for the size of the set of vertices that are infected by the end of the process. Moreover, we investigate the case $p = p(n) = o(1)$, and we focus on the important case of inhomogeneous random graphs exhibiting a power-law degree distribution with exponent $\beta \in (2,3)$. The first two authors have shown in this setting the existence of a critical $p_c =o(1)$ such that, with high probability, if $p =o(p_c)$, then the process does not evolve at all, whereas if $p = \omega(p_c)$, then the final set of infected vertices has size $\Omega(n)$. In this work we determine the asymptotic fraction of vertices that will eventually be infected and show that it also satisfies a law of large numbers.

We analyse the jigsaw percolation process, which may be seen as a measure of whether two graphs on the same vertex set are ‘jointly connected’. Bollobás, Riordan, Slivken, and Smith (2017) proved that, when the two graphs are independent binomial random graphs, whether the jigsaw process percolates undergoes a phase transition when the product of the two probabilities is $\Theta({1}/{(n\ln n)})$. We show that this threshold is sharp, and that it lies at ${1}/{(4n\ln n)}$.

The theory of influence and sharp threshold is a key tool in probability and probabilistic combinatorics, with numerous applications. One significant aspect of the theory is directed at identifying the level of generality of the product probability space that accommodates the event under study. We derive the influence inequality for a completely general product space, by establishing a relationship to the Lebesgue cube studied by Bourgain, Kahn, Kalai, Katznelson and Linial (BKKKL) in 1992. This resolves one of the assertions of BKKKL. Our conclusion is valid also in the setting of the generalized influences of Keller.

In this paper, we consider the Gross-Pitaevskii equation for the trapped dipolar quantum gases. We obtain the sharp criterion for the global existence and finite time blow-up in the unstable regime by constructing a variational problem and the so-called invariant manifold of the evolution flow.

We study the sharp threshold for blow-up and global existence and the instability of standing wave eiωtuω(x) for the Davey–Stewartson system

in ℝ3, where uω is a ground state. By constructing a type of cross-constrained variational problem and establishing so-called cross-invariant manifolds of the evolution flow, we derive a sharp criterion for global existence and blow-up of the solutions to (DS), which can be used to show that there exist blow-up solutions of (DS) arbitrarily close to the standing waves.