On the explosion of the number of fragments in the simple exchangeable fragmentation-coalescence processes

Abstract: We consider the exchangeable fragmentation-coagulation (EFC) processes, where the coagulations are multiple and not simultaneous, as in a $\Lambda$-coalescent, and the fragmentations dislocate at finite rate an individual block into sub-blocks of infinite size. Sufficient conditions are found for the block-counting process to explode (i.e. to reach $\infty$) or not and for infinity to be an exit boundary or an entrance boundary. In a case of regularly varying fragmentation and coagulation mechanisms, we find regimes where the boundary $\infty$ can be either an exit, an entrance or a regular boundary. In the latter regular case, the EFC process leaves instantaneously the set of partitions with an infinite number of blocks and returns to it immediately. Proofs are based on a new sufficient condition of explosion for positive continuous-time Markov chains, which is of independent interest.