This work continues the investigation, initiated in a recent work by Benjamini and Sznitman, of percolative properties of the set of points not visited by a random walk on the discrete torus (Z/NZ)^d up to time uN^d in high dimension d. If u>0 is chosen sufficiently small it has been shown that with overwhelming probability this vacant set contains a unique giant component containing segments of length c_0 log N for some constant c_0 > 0, and this component occupies a non-degenerate fraction of the total volume as N tends to infinity. Within the same setup, we investigate here the complement of the giant component in the vacant set and show that some components consist of segments of logarithmic size. In particular, this shows that the choice of a sufficiently large constant c_0 > 0 is crucial in the definition of the giant component.
We consider one or more independent random walks on the $d\ge 3$ dimensional discrete torus. The walks start from vertices chosen independently and uniformly at random. We analyze the fluctuation behavior of the size of some random sets arising from the trajectories of the random walks at a time proportional to the size of the torus. Examples include vacant sets and the intersection of ranges. The proof relies on a refined analysis of tail estimates for hitting time and can be applied for other vertex-transitive graphs.
We consider random walk on a discrete torus E of side-length N, in sufficiently high dimension d. We investigate the percolative properties of the vacant set corresponding to the collection of sites which have not been visited by the walk up to time uN^d. We show that when u is chosen small, as N tends to infinity, there is with overwhelming probability a unique connected component in the vacant set which contains segments of length const log N. Moreover, this connected component occupies a non-degenerate fraction of the total number of sites N^d of E, and any point of E lies within distance a…
We consider a simple random walk on a discrete torus (Z/NZ)^d with dimension d at least 3 and large side length N. For a fixed constant u > 0, we study the percolative properties of the vacant set, consisting of the set of vertices not visited by the random walk in its first [uN^d] steps. We prove the existence of two distinct phases of the vacant set in the following sense: if u > 0 is chosen large enough, all components of the vacant set contain no more than a power of log(N) vertices with high probability as N tends to infinity. On the other hand, for small u > 0, there exists a macroscopic…
The model of random interlacements is a one-parameter family $\mathcal I^u,$ $u \ge 0,$ of random subsets of $\mathbb{Z}^d,$ which locally describes the trace of simple random walk on a $d$-dimensional torus run up to time $u$ times its volume. Its complement, the so-called vacant set $\mathcal V^u$, has been shown to undergo a non-trivial percolation phase-transition in $u;$ i.e., there exists $u_*(d) \in (0, \infty)$ such that for $u \in [0, u_*(d))$ the vacant set $\mathcal V^u$ contains a unique infinite connected component $\mathcal V_\infty^u,$ while for $u > u_*(d)$ it consists of finit…
We introduce a model of random interlacements made of a countable collection of doubly infinite paths on Z^d, d bigger or equal to 3. A non-negative parameter u measures how many trajectories enter the picture. This model describes in the large N limit the microscopic structure in the bulk, which arises when considering the disconnection time of a discrete cylinder with base a d-1-dimensional discrete torus of side-length N, or the set of points visited by simple random walk on the d-dimensional discrete torus of side-length N by times of order uN^d. We study the percolative properties of the …
For $d\ge 3$ we construct a new coupling of the trace left by a random walk on a large $d$-dimensional discrete torus with the random interlacements on $\mathbb Z^d$. This coupling has the advantage of working up to macroscopic subsets of the torus. As an application, we show a sharp phase transition for the diameter of the component of the vacant set on the torus containing a given point. The threshold where this phase transition takes place coincides with the critical value $u_*(d)$ of random interlacements on $\mathbb Z^d$. Our main tool is a variant of the soft-local time coupling techniqu…
We study a directed flipping process that underlies the performance of the random edge simplex algorithm. In this stochastic process, which takes place on a one-dimensional lattice whose sites may be either occupied or vacant, occupied sites become vacant at a constant rate and simultaneously cause all sites to the right to change their state. This random process exhibits rich phenomenology. First, there is a front, defined by the position of the left-most occupied site, that propagates at a nontrivial velocity. Second, the front involves a depletion zone with an excess of vacant sites. The to…
We define the model of two-dimensional random interlacements using simple random walk trajectories conditioned on never hitting the origin, and then obtain some properties of this model. Also, for random walk on a large torus conditioned on not hitting the origin up to some time proportional to the mean cover time, we show that the law of the vacant set around the origin is close to that of random interlacements at the corresponding level. Thus, this new model provides a way to understand the structure of the set of late points of the covering process from a microscopic point of view.
In this paper we provide general conditions on a one parameter family of random infinite subsets of Z^d to contain a unique infinite connected component for which the chemical distances are comparable to the Euclidean distances, focusing primarily on models with long-range correlations. Our results are in the spirit of those by Antal and Pisztora proved for Bernoulli percolation. We also prove a shape theorem for balls in the chemical distance under such conditions. Our general statements give novel results about the structure of the infinite connected component of the vacant set of random int…
For $d \geq 3$ we obtain an approximation of the zero-average Gaussian free field on the discrete $d$-dimensional torus of large side length $N$ by the Gaussian free field on $\mathbb Z^d$, valid in boxes of roughly side length $N - N^δ$ with $δ\in (\frac12,1)$. As an implication, the level sets of the zero-average Gaussian free field on the torus can be approximated by the level sets of the Gaussian free field on $\mathbb Z^d$. This leads to a series of applications related to level-set percolation. We show that level sets of the zero-average Gaussian free field on the torus for levels $h > h…
We study a random conductance problem on a $d$-dimensional discrete torus of size $L > 0$. The conductances are independent, identically distributed random variables uniformly bounded from above and below by positive constants. The effective conductance $A_L$ of the network is a random variable, depending on $L$, and the main result is a quantitative central limit theorem for this quantity as $L \to \infty$. In terms of scalings we prove that this nonlinear nonlocal function $A_L$ essentially behaves as if it were a simple spatial average of the conductances (up to logarithmic corrections). Th…
We explore some of the connections between the local picture left by the trace of simple random walk on a discrete cylinder with base a d-dimensional torus, d at least 2, of side-length N running for times of order N^{2d} and the model of random interlacements recently introduced in arXiv:0704.2560. In particular we show that when the base becomes large, in the neighborhood of a point of the cylinder with a vertical component of order N^d, the complement of the set of points visited by the walk up to times of order N^{2d}, is close in distribution to the law of the vacant set of random interla…
Biane proved the free analog of the logarithmic Sobolev inequality for probability measures on the real line by means of random matrix approximation procedure. We show that the same method can be applied to reprove Biane and Voiculescu's free analog of Talagrand's transportation cost inequality for measures on the real line. Furthermore, we prove the free analogs of the logarithmic Sobolev inequality and the transportation cost inequality for measures on 1-dimensional torus as well by extending the method to special unitary random matrices.
We consider the $n$-component $|φ|^4$ spin model on $\mathbb{Z}^4$, for all $n \geq 1$, with small coupling constant. We prove that the susceptibility has a logarithmic correction to mean field scaling, with exponent $\frac{n+2}{n+8}$ for the logarithm. We also analyse the asymptotic behaviour of the pressure as the critical point is approached, and prove that the specific heat has fractional logarithmic scaling for $n =1,2,3$; double logarithmic scaling for $n=4$; and is bounded when $n>4$. In addition, for the model defined on the $4$-dimensional discrete torus, we prove that the scaling lim…
We consider a continuous time random walk on the two-dimensional discrete torus, whose motion is governed by the discrete Gaussian free field on the corresponding box acting as a potential. More precisely, at any vertex the walk waits an exponentially distributed time with mean given by the exponential of the field and then jumps to one of its neighbors, chosen uniformly at random. We prove that throughout the low-temperature regime and at in-equilibrium timescales, the process admits a scaling limit as a spatial K-process driven by a random trapping landscape, which is explicitly related to t…
We consider dynamical percolation on the $d$-dimensional discrete torus of side length $n$, $\mathbb{Z}_n^d$, where each edge refreshes its status at rate $μ=μ_n\le 1/2$ to be open with probability $p$. We study random walk on the torus, where the walker moves at rate $1/(2d)$ along each open edge. In earlier work of two of the authors with A. Stauffer, it was shown that in the subcritical case $p<p_c(\mathbb{Z}^d)$, the (annealed) mixing time of the walk is $Θ(n^2/μ)$, and it was conjectured that in the supercritical case $p>p_c(\mathbb{Z}^d)$, the mixing time is $Θ(n^2+1/μ)$; here the implie…
For critical bond-percolation on high-dimensional torus, this paper proves sharp lower bounds on the size of the largest cluster, removing a logarithmic correction in the lower bound in Heydenreich and van der Hofstad (2007). This improvement finally settles a conjecture by Aizenman (1997) about the role of boundary conditions in critical high-dimensional percolation, and it is a key step in deriving further properties of critical percolation on the torus. Indeed, a criterion of Nachmias and Peres (2008) implies appropriate bounds on diameter and mixing time of the largest clusters. We further…
We investigate the scaling of the largest critical percolation cluster on a large d-dimensional torus, for nearest-neighbor percolation in high dimensions, or when d>6 for sufficient spread-out percolation. We use a relatively simple coupling argument to show that this largest critical cluster is, with high probability, bounded above by a large constant times $V^{2/3}$ and below by a small constant times $V^{2/3}(log V)^{-4/3}$, where V is the volume of the torus. We also give a simple criterion in terms of the subcritical percolation two-point function on Z^d under which the lower bound can b…
We show that the largest subsurface projection distance between a marking and its image under the nth step of a random walk grows logarithmically in n, with probability approaching 1 as n tends to infinity. Our setup is general and also applies to (relatively) hyperbolic groups and to $\mathrm{Out}(F_n)$. We then use this result to prove Rivin's conjecture that for a random walk $(w_n)$ on the mapping class group, the shortest geodesic in the hyperbolic mapping torus $M_{w_n}$ has length on the order of $1/ \log^2(n)$.
