Metastability Thresholds for Anisotropic Bootstrap Percolation in Three Dimensions

In this paper we analyze several anisotropic bootstrap percolation models in three dimensions. We present the order of magnitude for the metastability thresholds for a fairly general class of models. In our proofs, we use an adaptation of the technique of dimensional reduction. We find that the order of the metastability threshold is generally determined by the ‘easiest growth direction’ in the model. In contrast to anisotropic bootstrap percolation in two dimensions, in three dimensions the order of the metastability threshold for anisotropic bootstrap percolation can be equal to that of isotropic bootstrap percolation.