Study of a lattice-gas model for a prey–predator system

The study of interacting particle systems (IPS) has recently attracted growing interest. Also, the understanding of irreversible processes is a challenging field in statistical physics. In this work a model of an irreversible IPS, where particles are preys and predators, is presented and studied. The model includes smart pursuit (predators to preys) and evasion (preys from predators). Depending on the birth and death probabilities for prey and predators, the model exhibits irreversible phase transitions (IPTs) between a coexistence state with coexistence of both species and an absorbing state where predator's extinction is observed. Second-order IPTs belong to the universality class of directed percolation as it follows from an epidemic analysis at criticality.