The time of bootstrap percolation in two dimensions

Paul Balister, Béla Bollobás, Paul Smith

Published 2013-05-23, updated 2015-08-17Version 2

We study the distribution of the percolation time $T$ of two-neighbour bootstrap percolation on $[n]^2$ with initial set $A\sim\mathrm{Bin}([n]^2,p)$. We determine $T$ with high probability up to a constant factor for all $p$ above the critical probability for percolation, and to within a $1+o(1)$ factor for a large range of $p$.