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 component of the vacant set occupying a non degenerate fraction of the total volume N^d. In dimensions d at least 5, we additionally prove that this macroscopic component is unique, by showing that all other components have volumes of order at most a power of log(N). Our results thus solve open problems posed by Benjamini and Sznitman in arXiv:math/0610802, who studied the small u regime in high dimension. The proofs are based on a coupling of the random walk with random interlacements on Z^d. Among other techniques, the construction of this coupling employs a refined use of discrete potential theory. By itself, this coupling strengthens a result in arXiv:0802.3654.
We examine the sets of late points of a symmetric random walk on $Z^2$ projected onto the torus $Z^2_K$, culminating in a limit theorem for the cover time of the toral random walk. This extends the work done for the simple random walk in Dembo, et al. (2006) to a large class of random walks projected onto the lattice torus. The approach uses comparisons between planar and toral hitting times and distributions on annuli, and uses only random walk methods.
We give Harnack inequalities for the hitting distributions of a large family of symmetric random walks on $\Z^2$, and their projections onto the lattice torus $\Z^2_K$. This extends a framework for the simple random walk in Dembo, et al. (2006), and generalizes the results in Bass, Rosen (2007) to the toral projection.
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.
Our paper gives bounds for the rate of convergence for a class of random walks on the d-dimensional torus generated by a set of n vectors in R^d/Z^d. We give bounds on the discrepancy distance from Haar measure; our lower bound holds for all such walks, and if the generators arise from the rows of a "badly approximable" matrix, then there is a corresponding upper bound. The bounds are sharp for walks on the circle.
Homogeneous mass fragmentation processes describe the evolution of a unit mass that breaks down randomly into pieces as time. Mathematically speaking, they can be thought of as continuous-time analogues of branching random walks with non-negative displacements. Following recent developments in the theory of branching random walks, in particular the work of \cite{AShi10}, we consider the problem of the Seneta-Heyde norming of the so-called additive martingale at criticality. Aside from replicating results for branching random walks in the new setting of fragmentation processes, our main goal is…
We study the mixing time of a random walk on the torus, alternated with a Lebesgue measure preserving Bernoulli map. Without the Bernoulli map, the mixing time of the random walk alone is $O(1/ε^2)$, where $ε$ is the step size. Our main results show that for a class of Bernoulli maps, when the random walk is alternated with the Bernoulli map $φ$ the mixing time becomes $O(|\ln ε|)$. We also study the \emph{dissipation time} of this process, and obtain $O(|\ln ε|)$ upper and lower bounds with explicit constants.
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 examine escape and entrance times, Green's functions, local times, and hitting distributions of discs and annuli of a symmetric random walk on $\Z^2$ projected onto the periodic lattice $\Z^2_K$. This extends a framework for the simple planar random walk in Dembo, et al. (2006) to the large class of planar random walks in Bass, Rosen (2007). The approach uses comparisons between $\Z^2$ and $\Z^2_K$ hitting times and distributions on annuli, and uses only random walk methods.
We investigate the relation between the local picture left by the trajectory of a simple random walk on the torus (Z/NZ)^d, d >= 3, until u N^d time steps, u > 0, and the model of random interlacements recently introduced by Sznitman. In particular, we show that for large N, the joint distribution of the local pictures in the neighborhoods of finitely many distant points left by the walk up to time u N^d converges to independent copies of the random interlacement at level u.
Let a simple random walk run inside a torus of dimension three or higher for a number of steps which is a constant proportion of the volume. We examine geometric properties of the range, the random subgraph induced by the set of vertices visited by the walk. Distance and mixing bounds for the typical range are proven that are a $k$-iterated log factor from those on the full torus for arbitrary $k$. The proof uses hierarchical renormalization and techniques that can possibly be applied to other random processes in the Euclidean lattice. We use the same technique to bound the heat kernel of a ra…
Let x and y be points chosen uniformly at random from $\Z_n^4$, the four-dimensional discrete torus with side length n. We show that the length of the loop-erased random walk from x to y is of order $n^2 (\log n)^{1/6}$, resolving a conjecture of Benjamini and Kozma. We also show that the scaling limit of the uniform spanning tree on $\Z_n^4$ is the Brownian continuum random tree of Aldous. Our proofs use the techniques developed by Peres and Revelle, who studied the scaling limits of the uniform spanning tree on a large class of finite graphs that includes the d-dimensional discrete torus for…
For a subcritical Galton-Watson process $(ζ_n)$, it is well known that under an $X \log X$ condition, the quotient $P(ζ_n > 0)/ Eζ_n$ has a finite positive limit. There is an analogous result for a (one-dimensional) supercritical branching random walk: when $a$ is in the so-called subcritical speed area, the probability of presence around $na$ in the $n$-th generation is asymptotically proportional to the corresponding expectation. In Rouault (1993) this result was stated under a natural $X \log X$ assumption on the offspring point process and a (unnatural) condition on the offspring mean. Her…
Homogeneous fragmentations describe the evolution of a unit mass that breaks down randomly into pieces as time passes. They can be thought of as continuous time analogs of a certain type of branching random walks, which suggests the use of time-discretization to shift known results from the theory of branching random walks to the fragmentation setting. In particular, this yields interesting information about the asymptotic behaviour of fragmentations. On the other hand, homogeneous fragmentations can also be investigated using a powerful technique of discretization of space due to Kingman, nam…
Consider the subgraph of the discrete $d$-dimensional torus of size length $N$, $d\ge3$, induced by the range of the simple random walk on the torus run until the time $uN^d$. We prove that for all $d\ge 3$ and $u>0$, the mixing time for the random walk on this subgraph is of order $N^2$ with probability at least $1 - Ce^{-(\log N)^2}$.
Let $ρ$ be a probability measure on $\mathrm{SL}\_d(\mathbb{Z})$ and consider the random walk defined by $ρ$ on the torus $\mathbb{T}^d = \mathbb{R}^d/\mathbb{Z}^d$. Bourgain, Furmann, Lindenstrauss and Mozes proved that under an assumption on the group generated by the support of $$ρ$$, the random walk starting at any irrational point equidistributes in the torus. In this article, we study the central limit theorem and the law of the iterated logarithm for this walk starting at some point having good diophantine properties.
We prove that the scaling limit of the weakly self-avoiding walk on a $d$-dimensional discrete torus is Brownian motion on the continuum torus if the length of the rescaled walk is $o(V^{1/2})$ where $V$ is the volume (number of points) of the torus and if $d>4$. We also prove that the diffusion constant of the resulting torus Brownian motion is the same as the diffusion constant of the scaling limit of the usual weakly self-avoiding walk on $\mathbb{Z}^d$. This provides further manifestation of the fact that the weakly self-avoiding walk model on the torus does not feel that it is on the toru…
We introduce a model of branching interlacements for general critical offspring distributions. It consists of a countable collection of infinite tree-indexed random walk trajectories on $Z^d,d\geq5$. We show that this model turns out to be the local limit of the tree-indexed random walk in a discrete torus, conditioned on the size proportional to the volume of the torus. This generalizes the previous results of Angel, Ráth and the author, for the critical geometric offspring distribution. Our model also includes the model of random interlacements introduced by Sznitman as a degenerate case. To…
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 o…
Sharp estimates for the length of loop erased random walk between two vertices on the [n]^d -torus, d > 4, are established. The mean length is order n^{d/2} . In dimension 4 we have only an upper bound.
A small world is obtained from the $d$-dimensional torus of size 2L adding randomly chosen connections between sites, in a way such that each site has exactly one random neighbour in addition to its deterministic neighbours. We study the asymptotic behaviour of the meeting time $T_L$ of two random walks moving on this small world and compare it with the result on the torus. On the torus, in order to have convergence, we have to rescale $T_L$ by a factor $C_1L^2$ if $d=1$, by $C_2L^2\log L$ if $d=2$ and $C_dL^d$ if $d\ge3$. We prove that on the small world the rescaling factor is $C^\prime_dL^d…
This work proves that the fluctuations of the cover time of simple random walk in the discrete torus of dimension at least three with large side-length are governed by the Gumbel extreme value distribution. This result was conjectured for example in the book by Aldous & Fill. We also derive some corollaries which qualitatively describe "how" covering happens. In addition, we develop a new and stronger coupling of the model of random interlacements, introduced by Sznitman, and random walk in the torus. This coupling is used to prove the cover time result and is also of independent interest.
The main result of this paper is a decomposition theorem for a measure on the one-dimensional torus. Given a sufficiently large subset $S$ of the positive integers, an arbitrary measure on the torus is decomposed as the sum of two measures. The first one $μ_1$ has the property that the random walk with initial distribution $μ_1$ evolved by the action of $S$ equidistributes very fast. The second measure $μ_2$ in the decomposition is concentrated on very small neighborhoods of a small number of points.
Let $\mathbb{T}^d_N$, $d\ge 2$, be the discrete $d$-dimensional torus with $N^d$ points. Place a particle at each site of $\mathbb{T}^d_N$ and let them evolve as independent, nearest-neighbor, symmetric, continuous-time random walks. Each time two particles meet, they coalesce into one. Denote by $C_N$ the first time the set of particles is reduced to a singleton. Cox [6] proved the existence of a time-scale $θ_N$ for which $C_N/θ_N$ converges to the sum of independent exponential random variables. Denote by $Z^N_t$ the total number of particles at time $t$. We prove that the sequence of Marko…
We use the lace expansion to study the long-distance decay of the two-point function of weakly self-avoiding walk on the integer lattice $\mathbb{Z}^d$ in dimensions $d>4$, in the vicinity of the critical point, and prove an upper bound $|x|^{-(d-2)}\exp[-c|x|/ξ]$, where the correlation length $ξ$ has a square root divergence at the critical point. As an application, we prove that the two-point function for weakly self-avoiding walk on a discrete torus in dimensions $d>4$ has a "plateau." We also discuss the significance and consequences of the plateau for the analysis of critical behaviour on…
Let $\Cal S$ be an abelian group of automorphisms of a probability space $(X, {\Cal A}, μ)$ with a finite system of generators $(A_1, ..., A_d)$. Let $A^{\el}$ denote $A_1^{\ell_1} ... A_d^{\ell_d}$, for ${\el}= (\ell_1, ..., \ell_d)$. If $(Z_k)$ is a random walk on $\Z^d$, one can study the asymptotic distribution of the sums $\sum_{k=0}^{n-1} \, f \circ A^{\,{Z_k(ω)}}$ and $\sum_{\el \in \Z^d} \PP(Z_n= \el) \, A^\el f$, for a function $f$ on $X$. In particular, given a random walk on commuting matrices in $SL(ρ, \Z)$ or in ${\Cal M}^*(ρ, \Z)$ acting on the torus $\T^ρ$, $ρ\geq 1$, what is th…
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 study the asymptotics of the $k$-regular self-similar fragmentation process. For $α> 0$ and an integer $k \geq 2$, this is the Markov process $(I_t)_{t \geq 0}$ in which each $I_t$ is a union of open subsets of $[0,1)$, and independently each subinterval of $I_t$ of size $u$ breaks into $k$ equally sized pieces at rate $u^α$. Let $k^{ - m_t}$ and $k^{ - M_t}$ be the respective sizes of the largest and smallest fragments in $I_t$. By relating $(I_t)_{t \geq 0}$ to a branching random walk, we find that there exist explicit deterministic functions $g(t)$ and $h(t)$ such that $|m_t - g(t)| \leq…
We consider a random walk $S_k$ with i.i.d. steps on a compact group equipped with a bi-invariant metric. We prove quantitative ergodic theorems for the sum $\sum_{k=1}^N f(S_k)$ with Hölder continuous test functions $f$, including the central limit theorem, the law of the iterated logarithm and an almost sure approximation by a Wiener process, provided the distribution of $S_k$ converges to the Haar measure in the $p$-Wasserstein metric fast enough. As an example we construct discrete random walks on an irrational lattice on the torus $\mathbb{R}^d/\mathbb{Z}^d$, and find their precise rate o…
In this work, we investigate a novel setting of Markovian loop measures and introduce a new class of loop measures called Bosonic loop measures. Namely, we consider loop soups with varying intensity $ μ\le 0 $ (chemical potential in physics terms), and secondly, we study Markovian loop measures on graphs with an additional "time" dimension leading to so-called space-time random walks and their loop measures and Poisson point loop processes. Interesting phenomena appear when the additional coordinate of the space-time process is on a discrete torus with non-symmetric jump rates. The projection …
In this paper, following the recent paper on Walk/Zeta Correspondence by the first author and his coworkers, we compute the zeta function for the three- and four-state quantum walk and correlated random walk, and the multi-state random walk on the one-dimensional torus by using the Fourier analysis. We deal with also the four-state quantum walk and correlated random walk on the two-dimensional torus. In addition, we introduce a new class of models determined by the generalized Grover matrix bridging the gap between the Grover matrix and the positive-support of the Grover matrix. Finally, we gi…
We study the mixing time of a random walker who moves inside a dynamical random cluster model on the d-dimensional torus of side-length n. In this model, edges switch at rate μbetween open and closed, following a Glauber dynamics for the random cluster model with parameters p,q. At the same time, the walker jumps at rate 1 as a simple random walk on the torus, but is only allowed to traverse open edges. We show that for small enough p the mixing time of the random walker is of order n^2/μ. In our proof we construct of a non-Markovian coupling through a multi-scale analysis of the environment, …
We consider random walk on dynamical percolation on the discrete torus $\mathbb{Z}_n^d$. In previous work, mixing times of this process for $p<p_c(\mathbb{Z}^d)$ were obtained in the annealed setting where one averages over the dynamical percolation environment. Here we study exit times in the quenched setting, where we condition on a typical dynamical percolation environment. We obtain an upper bound for all $p$ which for $p<p_c$ matches the known lower bound.
We obtain the leading orders of the maximum and the minimum of local times for the simple random walk on the two-dimensional torus at time proportional to the cover time. We also estimate the number of points with large (or small) values of the local times. These are analogues of estimates on the two-dimensional Gaussian free fields by Bolthausen, Deuschel, and Giacomin [Ann. Probab., 29 (2001)] and Daviaud [Ann. Probab., 34 (2006)], but we have different exponents from the case of the Gaussian free field.
Let $μ$ be a borelian probability measure on $\mathbf{G}:=\mathrm{SL}_d(\mathbb{Z}) \ltimes \mathbb{T}^d$. Define, for $x\in \mathbb{T}^d$, a random walk starting at $x$ denoting for $n\in \mathbb{N}$, \[ \left\{\begin{array}{rcl} X_0 &=&x\\ X_{n+1} &=& a_{n+1} X_n + b_{n+1} \end{array}\right. \] where $((a_n,b_n))\in \mathbf{G}^\mathbb{N}$ is an iid sequence of law $μ$. Then, we denote by $\mathbb{P}_x$ the measure on $(\mathbb{T}^d)^\mathbb{N}$ that is the image of $μ^{\otimes \mathbb{N}}$ by the map $\left((g_n) \mapsto (x,g_1 x, g_2 g_1 x, \dots , g_n \dots g_1 x, \dots)\right)$ and for an…
We consider the cover time for a simple random walk on the two-dimensional discrete torus of side length $n$. Dembo, Peres, Rosen, and Zeitouni [Ann. Math. 160:433-464, 2004] identified the leading term in the asymptotics for the cover time as $n$ goes to infinity. In this paper, we study the exact second order term. This is a discrete analogue of the work on the cover time for planar Brownian motion by Belius and Kistler [Probab. Theory Relat Fields. 167:461-552, 2017].
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…
The genealogical structure of self-similar growth-fragmentations can be described in terms of a branching random walk. The so-called intrinsic area $\mathrm{A}$ arises in this setting as the terminal value of a remarkable additive martingale. Motivated by connections with some models of random planar geometry, the purpose of this work is to investigate the effect of conditioning a self-similar growth-fragmentation on its intrinsic area. The distribution of $\mathrm{A}$ satisfies a useful smoothing transform which enables us to establish the existence of a regular density $a$ and to determine t…
We study the behavior of random walk on dynamical percolation. In this model, the edges of a graph G are either open or closed and refresh their status at rate μ while at the same time a random walker moves on G at rate 1 but only along edges which are open. On the d-dimensional torus with side length n, we prove that in the subcritical regime, the mixing times for both the full system and the random walker are n^2/μ up to constants. We also obtain results concerning mean squared displacement and hitting times. Finally, we show that the usual recurrence transience dichotomy for the lattice Z^d…
We provide an analysis of the expected meeting time of two independent random walks on a regular graph. For 1-D circle and 2-D torus graphs, we show that the expected meeting time can be expressed as the sum of the inverse of non-zero eigenvalues of a suitably defined Laplacian matrix. We also conjecture based on empirical evidence that this result holds more generally for simple random walks on arbitrary regular graphs. Further, we show that the expected meeting time for the 1-D circle of size $N$ is $Θ(N^2)$, and for a 2-D $N \times N$ torus it is $Θ(N^2 log N)$.
This paper focuses on the problem of modeling for small world effect on complex networks. Let's consider the supercritical Poisson continuous percolation on $d$-dimensional torus $T^d_n$ with volume $n^d$. By adding "long edges (short cuts)" randomly to the largest percolation cluster, we obtain a random graph $\mathscr G_n$. In the present paper, we first prove that the diameter of $\mathscr G_n$ grows at most polynomially fast in $\ln n$ and we call it the Poisson Geometry Small World. Secondly, we prove that the random walk on $\mathscr G_n$ possesses the rapid mixing property, namely, the …
Let x and y be chosen uniformly in a graph G. We find the limiting distribution of the length of a loop-erased random walk from x to y on a large class of graphs that include the discrete torus in dimensions 5 and above. Moreover, on this family of graphs we show that a suitably normalized finite-dimensional scaling limit of the uniform spanning tree is a Brownian continuum random tree.
Let $(G_n)_{n=1}^{\infty}$ be a sequence of finite graphs, and let Y_t be the length of a loop-erased random walk on G_n after t steps. We show that for a large family of sequences of finite graphs, which includes the case in which G_n is the d-dimensional torus of size-length n for $d \geq 4$, the process $(Y_t)_{t=0}^{\infty}$, suitably normalized, converges to the Rayleigh process introduced by Evans, Pitman, and Winter. Our proof relies heavily on ideas of Peres and Revelle, who used loop-erased random walks to show that the uniform spanning tree on large finite graphs converges to the Bro…
We present a coalescent process where three particles merge at each coagulation step. Using a random walk representation, we prove duality with a fragmentation process, whose fragmentation law we specify explicitly. Furthermore, we give a second construction of the coalescence in terms of random binary forests and study asymptotic properties. Starting from N particles of unit mass, we obtain under an appropriate rescaling when N tends to infinity a well-known binary coalescence, the so-called standard additive coalescent.
We consider the model of random walk on dynamical percolation introduced by Peres, Stauffer and Steif (2015). We obtain comparison results for this model for hitting and mixing times and for the spectral-gap and log-Sobolev constant with the corresponding quantities for simple random walk on the underlying graph $G$, for general graphs. When $G$ is the torus $\mathbb{Z}_n^d$, we recover the results of Peres et al. and we also extend them to the critical case. We also obtain bounds in the cases where $G$ is a transitive graph of moderate growth and also when it is the hypercube.
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.
It is well known that adding "long edges (shortcuts)" to a regularly constructed graph will make the resulted model a small world. Recently, \cite{W} indicated that, among all long edges, those edges with length proportional to the diameter of the regularly constructed graph may play the key role. In this paper, we modify the original Newman-Watts small world by adding only long special edges to the $d$-dimensional lattice torus (with size $n^d$) according to \cite{W}, and show that the diameter of the modified model and the mixing time of random walk on it grow polynomially fast in $\ln n$.
Let $\mathcal{S}_n$ be the permutation group on $n$ elements, and consider a random walk on $\mathcal{S}_n$ whose step distribution is uniform on $k$-cycles. We prove a well-known conjecture that the mixing time of this process is $(1/k)n\log n$, with threshold of width linear in $n$. Our proofs are elementary and purely probabilistic, and do not appeal to the representation theory of $\mathcal{S}_n$.
We prove a quenched functional central limit theorem (quenched FCLT) for the sums of a random field (r.f.) along a 2d-random walk in different situations: when the r.f. is iid with a second order moment (random sceneries), or when it is generated by the action of commuting automorphisms of a torus. We consider also a quenched version of the FCLT when the random walk is replaced by a Lorentz process in the random scenery.
Our previous work presented explicit formulas for the generalized zeta function and the generalized Ihara zeta function corresponding to the Grover walk and the positive-support version of the Grover walk on the regular graph via the Konno-Sato theorem, respectively. This paper extends these walks to a class of walks including random walks, correlated random walks, quantum walks, and open quantum random walks on the torus by the Fourier analysis.
We investigate the asymptotic variance of Gaussian nodal excursions in the Euclidean space, focusing on the case where the spectral measure has incommensurable atoms. This study requires to establish fine recurrence properties in 0 for the associated irrational random walk on the torus. We show in particular that the recurrence magnitude depends strongly on the diophantine properties of the atoms, and the same goes for the variance asymptotics of nodal excursions. More specifically, if the spectral measures contains atoms which ratios are well approximable by rationals, the variance is likely …
