Abstract
The general epidemic process (GEP), a stochastic multiparticle process which exhibits a critical point near an absorbing state and leads to percolating clusters is studied in a finite environment. Using renormalisation group techniques, the authors calculate the linear relaxation time in a cubic geometry of finite size L, with periodic boundary conditions imposed. The corresponding scaling behaviour to O( epsilon )( epsilon =6-d, d being the spatial dimension) is presented in universal form.