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Abstract: Consider non-intersecting Brownian motions on the real line, starting from the origin at , with particles forced to reach p distinct target points at time , with . This can be viewed as a diffusion process in a sector of . This work shows that the transition probability, that is the probability for the particles to pass through windows at times , satisfies, in a new set of variables, a non-linear PDE which can be expressed as a near-Wronskian; that is a determinant of a matrix of size , with each row being a derivative of the previous, except for the last column. It is an interesting open question to understand those equations from a more probabilistic point of view. As an application of these equations, let the number of particles forced to the extreme points and tend to infinity; keep the number of particles forced to intermediate points fixed (inliers), but let the target points themselves go to infinity according to a proper scale. A new critical process appears at the point of bifurcation, where the bulk of the particles forced to depart from those going to . These statistical fluctuations near that point of bifurcation are specified by a kernel, which is a rational perturbation of the Pearcey kernel. This work also shows that such equations are an essential tool in obtaining certain asymptotic results. Finally, the paper contains a conjecture. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Consider non-intersecting Brownian motions on the line leaving from the origin and forced to two arbitrary points. Letting the number of Brownian particles tend to infinity, and upon rescaling, there is a point of bifurcation, where the support of the density of particles goes from one interval to two intervals. In this paper, we show that at that very point of bifurcation a cusp appears, near which the Brownian paths fluctuate like the Pearcey process. This is a universality result within this class of problems. Tracy and Widom obtained such a result in the symmetric case, when the two target points are symmetric with regard to the origin. This asymmetry enabled us to improve considerably a result concerning the non-linear partial differential equations governing the transition probabilities for the Pearcey process, obtained by Adler and van Moerbeke. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]