Finite-size scaling of the error threshold transition in finite population

The error threshold transition in a stochastic (i.e. finite population) version of the quasispecies model of molecular evolution is studied using finite-size scaling. For the single-sharp-peak replication landscape, the deterministic model exhibits a firstorder transition at Q = Qc = 1/a, where Q is the probability of exact replication of a molecule of length L → ∞, and a is the selective advantage of the master string. For sufficiently large population size, N , we show that in the critical region the characteristic time for the vanishing of the master strings from the population is described very well by the scaling assumption τ = Nfa [ (Q−Qc)N 1/2 ] , where fa is an a-dependent scaling function. Short Title: error threshold in finite populations PACS: 87.10+e, 64.60.Cn