Refined Universality for Critical KCM: Upper Bounds

We study a general class of interacting particle systems called kinetically constrained models (KCM) in two dimensions. They are tightly linked to the monotone cellular automata called bootstrap percolation. Among the three classes of such models (Bollobás et al. in Combin Probab Comput 24(4):687-722, 2015), the critical ones are the most studied. Together with the companion paper by Marêché and the author (Hartarsky and Marêché in Combin Probab Comput 31(5):879-906, 2022), our work determines the logarithm of the infection time up to a constant factor for all critical KCM. This was previously known only up to logarithmic corrections (Hartarsky et al. in Probab Theory Relat Fields 178(1):289-326, 2020, Ann Probab 49(5):2141-2174, 2021, Martinelli et al. in Commun Math Phys 369(2):761-809, 2019). We establish that on this level of precision critical KCM have to be classified into seven categories. This refines the two classes present in bootstrap percolation (Bollobás et al. in Proc Lond Math Soc (3) 126(2):620-703, 2023) and the two in previous rougher results (Hartarsky et al. in Probab Theory Relat Fields 178(1):289-326, 2020, Ann Probab 49(5):2141-2174, 2021, Martinelli et al. in Commun Math Phys 369(2):761-809, 2019). In the present work we establish the upper bounds for the novel five categories and thus complete the universality program for equilibrium critical KCM. Our main innovations are the identification of the dominant relaxation mechanisms and a more sophisticated and robust version of techniques recently developed for the study of the Fredrickson-Andersen 2-spin facilitated model (Hartarsky et al. in Probab Theory Relat Fields 185(3):993-1037, 2023).