# Reply to comment on “Dynamic scaling in the spatial distribution of persistent sites”

In their comment on our paper , Ben-Naim and Krapivsky claims to have presented numerical evidence against our conclusions. We show that their claims are not valid for the following reasons, which we discuss here.   
(i) The arguments given in  against non-universality are incorrect.   
(ii) The apparent disagreement between the results arises possibly from a difference in the initial conditions used.   
(iii) We present new numerical results, which support our earlier conclusions.

In , the authors emphasise that their scaling function is independent of all initial conditions. This is a surprising result, because unlike the case of particle density $`n(t)`$, the prefactor $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ appearing in the asymptotic expression $`P(t)=\mathrm{\Gamma }t^\theta `$ depends on the initial density $`n_0`$. To show this, we first note that for an initial particle density $`n_0`$, the effects of the annihilation reaction will be felt only after a time interval $`t_0(Dn_0^2)^1`$. For $`tt_0`$, $`n(t)t^{1/2}`$ and so $`P(t)=P(t_0)(t/t_0)^\theta `$. On the other hand, for $`tt_0`$, $`n(t)n_0`$ so that $`P(t)P(0)e^{\alpha n_0\sqrt{Dt}}`$ in this regime (following an argument given in ). Here $`P(0)`$ is the initial density of persistent sites and $`\alpha `$ is a numerical constant. Combining the two, one finds $`\mathrm{\Gamma }P(0)n_{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{2\theta }`$, which we have verified in simulations. (Similar arguments can be used to show that the prefactor for particle density $`n(t)`$ is independent of $`n_0`$).

It is easy to see that $`1/2`$ cannot be a universal value for the dynamical exponent $`z`$ proposed in , contrary to the claims in . To show this, let us consider the $`q`$-state Potts model in the limit $`q\mathrm{}`$, the dynamics of which is given by $`A+AA`$ reaction which also has $`n(t)t^{1/2}`$. It is known from the exact solution  that $`\theta =1`$ for this model. If we now follow the arguments in , we find that their scaling function $`(x)`$ constant for $`x1`$ and decays exponentially for $`x1`$ (where $`x=lt^{1/2}`$). Recomputing the persistent fraction $`P(t)`$ using this distribution yields the inconsistent result $`P(t)t^{1/2}`$.

Coming to the numerics, first of all, we would like to point out that $`L(t)`$ curves in  for $`n_0=0.5`$ and $`n_0=0.8`$ are almost identical, unlike the corresponding plots given in our paper. This is possibly due to a difference in the initial condition: the entire lattice being taken as persistent at $`t=0`$ i.e, $`P(0)=1`$ instead of $`P(0)=1n_0`$ as in . In the former case, the fragmentation of the lattice into clusters of persistent and non-persistent sites is delayed by one MC step (for $`D=1/2`$). Consequently, the effective particle density is only $`n_{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{}=n_0\delta n_0`$, where $`\delta n_0`$ is the decrease in density over one time step. We have found numerically that for $`n_0=0.2`$, 0.5 and 0.8, $`n_{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{}0.15`$, 0.25 and 0.29 respectively. In this small range, it is difficult to make any inference regarding the universality of exponents.

Finally, we present more numerical results (Fig. 1) which endorses the conclusions in our paper. In particular, we see that as $`n_01`$, $`z\frac{\theta }{n_0}`$ (Table I), in agreement with our earlier observations.