Exponential growth and continuous phase transitions for the contact process on trees

Abstract: We study the supercritical contact process on Galton-Watson trees and periodic trees. We prove that if the contact process survives weakly then it dominates a supercritical Crump-Mode-Jagers branching process. Hence the number of infected sites grows exponentially fast. As a consequence we conclude that the contact process dies out at the critical value $\lambda_1$ for weak survival, and the survival probability $p(\lambda)$ is continuous with respect to the infection rate $\lambda$. Applying this fact, we show the contact process on a general periodic tree experiences two phase transitions in the sense that $\lambda_1<\lambda_2$, which confirms a conjecture of Stacey's \cite{Stacey}. We also prove that if the contact process survives strongly at $\lambda$ then it survives strongly at a $\lambda'<\lambda$, which implies that the process does not survive strongly at the critical value $\lambda_2$ for strong survival.