For a simple symmetric random walk in dimension $d\geq 3$, a uniform strong law of large numbers is proved for the number of sites with given local time up to time $n$.
Consider a symmetric aperiodic random walk in $Z^d$, $d\geq 3$. There are points (called heavy points) where the number of visits by the random walk is close to its maximum. We investigate the local times around these heavy points and show that they converge to a deterministic limit as the number of steps tends to infinity.
We study tail behaviour of the distribution of the area under the positive excursion of a random walk which has negative drift and heavy-tailed increments. We determine the asymptotics for tail probabilities for the area.
It is well-known that large deviations of random walks driven by independent and identically distributed heavy-tailed random variables are governed by the so-called principle of one large jump. We note that further subtleties hold for such random walks in the large deviation scale which we call hidden large deviation. We apply this idea in the context of queueing processes with heavy-tailed service times and study approximations of severe congestion times for (buffered) queues. We conclude with simulated examples to verify our results.
We consider the randomly biased random walk on trees in the slow movement regime as in [HS16], whose potential is given by a branching random walk in the boundary case. We study the heavy range up to the $n$-th return to the root, i.e., the number of edges visited more than $k_n$ times. For $k_n=n^θ$ with $θ\in(0,1)$, we obtain the convergence in probability of the rescaled heavy range, which improves one result of [AD20].
We consider random walks with finite second moment which drifts to $-\infty$ and have heavy tail. We focus on the events when the minimum and the final value of this walk belong to some compact set. We first specify the associated probability. Then, conditionally on such an event, we finely describe the trajectory of the random walk. It yields a decomposition theorem with respect to a random time giving a big jump whose distribution can be described explicitly.
We focus on recurrent random walks in random environment (RWRE) on Galton-Watson trees. The range of these walks, that is the number of sites visited at some fixed time, has been studied in three different papers [AC18], [AdR17] and [dR16]. Here we study the heavy range: the number of edges visited at least $α$ times for some integer $α$. The asymptotic behavior of this process when $α$ is a power of the number of steps of the walk is given for all the recurrent cases. It turns out that this heavy range plays a crucial role in the rate of convergence of an estimator of the environment from a s…
Sub-Gaussian estimates for the natural random walk is typical of many regular fractal graphs. Subordination shows that there exist heavy tailed jump processes whose jump indices are greater than or equal to two. However, the existing machinery used to prove heat kernel bounds for such heavy tailed random walks fail in this case. In this work we extend Davies' perturbation method to obtain transition probability bounds for these anomalous heavy tailed random walks. We prove global upper and lower bounds on the transition probability density that are sharp up to constants. An important feature o…
Importance sampling algorithms for heavy-tailed random walks are considered. Using a specification with algorithms based on mixtures of the original distribution with some other distribution, sufficient conditions for obtaining bounded relative error are presented. It is proved that mixture algorithms of this kind can achieve asymptotically optimal relative error. Some examples of mixture algorithms are presented, including mixture algorithms using a scaling of the original distribution, and the bounds of the relative errors are calculated. The algorithms are evaluated numerically in a simple …
We consider asymptotics for the maximum of a modulated random walk whose increments $ξ_n^{X_n}$ are heavy-tailed. Of particular interest is the case where the modulating process $X$ is regenerative. Here we study also the maximum of the recursion given by $W_0=0$ and, for $n\ge1$, $W_n=\max(0,W_{n-1}+ξ_n^{X_n})$
This note continues paper of Denisov and Wachtel (2010), where we have constructed a $k$-dimensional random walk conditioned to stay in the Weyl chamber of type $A$. The construction was done under the assumption that the original random walk has $k-1$ moments. In this note we continue the study of killed random walks in the Weyl chamber, and assume that the tail of increments is regularly varying of index $α<k-1$. It appears that the asymptotic behaviour of random walks is different in this case. We determine the asymptotic behaviour of the exit time, and, using thisinformation, construct a c…
In the proof of the invariance principle for locally perturbed periodic Lorentz process with finite horizon, a lot of delicate results were needed concerning the recurrence properties of its unperturbed version. These were analogous to the similar properties of Simple Symmetric Random Walk. However, in the case of Lorentz process with infinite horizon, the analogous results for the corresponding random walk are not known, either. In this paper, these properties are ascertained for the appropriate random walk (this happens to be in the non normal domain of attraction of the normal law). As a to…
We study asymptotic properties of spatially non-homogeneous random walks with non-integrable increments, including transience, almost-sure bounds, and existence and non-existence of moments for first-passage and last-exit times. In our proofs we also make use of estimates for hitting probabilities and large deviations bounds. Our results are more general than existing results in the literature, which consider only the case of sums of independent (typically, identically distributed) random variables. We do not assume the Markov property. Existing results that we generalize include a circle of i…
Foss and Zachary (2003) and Foss, Palmowski and Zachary (2005) studied the probability of achieving a receding boundary on a time interval of random length by a random walk with a heavy-tailed jump distribution. They have proposed and developed a new approach that allows to generalise results of Asmussen (1998) onto the case of arbitrary stopping times and a wide class of nonlinear boundaries, and to obtain uniform results over all stopping times. In this paper, we consider a class of branching random walks with fading branching and obtain results on the tail asymptotics for the maximum of a b…
We study the asymptotic probability that a random walk with heavy-tailed increments crosses a high boundary on a random time interval. We use new techniques to extend results of Asmussen [Ann. Appl. Probab. 8 (1998) 354-374] to completely general stopping times, uniformity of convergence over all stopping times and a wide class of nonlinear boundaries. We also give some examples and counterexamples.
Consider a family of random walks $S_n^{(a)}=X_1^{(a)}+\cdots+X_n^{(a)}$ with negative drift $\mathbf E X_1^{(a)}=-a<0$ and finite variance $\mbox{var}(X_1^{(a)})=σ^2<\infty$.Let $M^{(a)}=\max_{n\ge 0} S_n^{(a)}$ be the maximums of the random walks. The exponential asymptotics $\mathbf P(aM^{(a)}>x)\sim e^{-2x/σ^2}$, as $a\to 0$, were found by Kingman and are known as heavy traffic approximation in the queueing theory. For subexponential random variables the large deviation asymptotics for $\mathbf P(M^{(a)}>x)\sim \frac{1}{a}\overline F^I(x)$ hold for fixed $a$ as $x\to\infty$. In this paper …
Given a branching random walk $(Z_n)_{n\geq0}$ on $\mathbb{R}$, let $Z_n(A)$ be the number of particles located in interval $A$ at generation $n$. It is well known (e.g., \cite{biggins}) that under some mild conditions, $Z_n(\sqrt nA)/Z_n(\mathbb{R})$ converges a.s. to $ν(A)$ as $n\rightarrow\infty$, where $ν$ is the standard Gaussian measure. In this work, we investigate its large deviation probabilities under the condition that the step size or offspring law has heavy tail, i.e. the decay rate of $$\mathbb{P}(Z_n(\sqrt nA)/Z_n(\mathbb{R})>p)$$ as $n\rightarrow\infty$, where $p\in(ν(A),1)$. O…
For families of random walks $\{S_k^{(a)}\}$ with $\mathbf E S_k^{(a)} = -ka < 0$ we consider their maxima $M^{(a)} = \sup_{k \ge 0} S_k^{(a)}$. We investigate the asymptotic behaviour of $M^{(a)}$ as $a \to 0$ for asymptotically stable random walks. This problem appeared first in the 1960's in the analysis of a single-server queue when the traffic load tends to 1 and since then is referred to as the heavy-traffic approximation problem. Kingman and Prokhorov suggested two different approaches which were later followed by many authors. We give two elementary proofs of our main result, using eac…
We study models of discrete-time, symmetric, $\Z^{d}$-valued random walks in random environments, driven by a field of i.i.d. random nearest-neighbor conductances $ω_{xy}\in[0,1]$, with polynomial tail near 0 with exponent $γ>0$. We first prove for all $d\geq5$ that the return probability shows an anomalous decay (non-Gaussian) that approches (up to sub-polynomial terms) a random constant times $n^{-2}$ when we push the power $γ$ to zero. In contrast, we prove that the heat-kernel decay is as close as we want, in a logarithmic sense, to the standard decay $n^{-d/2}$ for large values of the par…
In this article, a localisation result is proved for the biased random walk on the range of a simple random walk in high dimensions (d \geq 5). This demonstrates that, unlike in the supercritical percolation setting, a slowdown effect occurs as soon a non-trivial bias is introduced. The proof applies a decomposition of the underlying simple random walk path at its cut-times to relate the associated biased random walk to a one-dimensional random walk in a random environment in Sinai's regime.
We consider a random walk $(Z^{(1)}_n, ..., Z^{(K+1)}_n) \in \mathbb{Z}^{K+1}$ with the constraint that each coordinate of the walk is at distance one from the following one. In this paper, we show that this random walk is slowed down by a variance factor $σ_K^2 = \frac{2}{K+2}$ with respect to the case of the classical simple random walk without constraint.
In the present work, we investigate the case of Directed Polymer in a Random Environment (DPRE), when the increments of the random walk are heavy-tailed with tail-exponent equal to zero ($\mathbf{P}[|X_1|\geq n]$ decays slower than any power of $n$). This case has not yet been studied in the context of directed polymers and present key differences with the simple symmetric random walk case and the cases where the increments belong to the domain of attraction of an $α$-stable law, where $α\in (0, 2]$. We establish the absence of a very strong disorder regime - that is, the free energy equals ze…
The random walk in Dirichlet environment is a random walk in random environment where the transition probabilities are independent Dirichlet random variables. This random walk exhibits a property of statistical invariance by time-reversal which leads to several results. More precisely, a time-reversed random walk in Dirichlet environment (with null divergence) is also a random walk in random environment where the transition probabilities are independent Dirichlet random variables with different parameters. We show that on all graphs that satisfy a few weak assumptions, a random walk in random …
The joint distribution of value and local time for Brownian Motion has been reported by Borodin and Salminen. Its asymptotic behavior for recurrent random walk has been presented by Jain and Pruitt. Motivated by the need for queue size control during a pandemic (Hassin, Meilijson and Perlman), the current study presents closed form formulas for random walk and reflected random walk with $\pm 1$ increments, not necessarily fair.
We derive Donsker-Vardhan type results for functionals of the occupation times when the underlying random walk on $\mathbb Z^d$ is in the domain of attraction of an operator-stable law on $\mathbb R^d$. Applications to random walks on wreath products (also known as lamplighter groups) are given.
This article studies asymptotic approximations of ruin probabilities of multivariate random walks with heavy-tailed increments. Under our assumptions, the distributions of the increments are closely connected to multivariate subexponentiality and admit dependence between components. Keywords: subexponential distribution, ruin probability, multivariate random walk
We consider Random Walk in Random Scenery, denoted $X_n$, where the random walk is symmetric on $Z^d$, with $d>4$, and the random field is made up of i.i.d random variables with a stretched exponential tail decay, with exponent $α$ with $1<α$. We present asymptotics for the probability, over both randomness, that $\{X_n>n^β\}$ for $1/2<β<1$. To obtain such asymptotics, we establish large deviations estimates for the the self-intersection local times process.
Motivated by applications to insurance mathematics, we prove some heavy-traffic limit theorems for processes which encompass the fractionally differentiated random walk as well as some FARIMA processes, when the innovations are in the domain of attraction of a nonGaussian stable distribution.
Motivated by applications to insurance mathematics, we prove some heavy-traffic limit theorems for process which encompass the fractionally integrated random walk as well as some FARIMA processes, when the innovations are in the domain of attraction of a nonGaussian stable distribution.
We consider a random walker in a dynamic random environment given by a system of independent simple symmetric random walks. We obtain ballisticity results under two types of perturbations: low particle density, and strong local drift on particles. Surprisingly, the random walker may behave very differently depending on whether the underlying environment particles perform lazy or non-lazy random walks, which is related to a notion of permeability of the system. We also provide a strong law of large numbers, a functional central limit theorem and large deviation bounds under an ellipticity condi…
We show that for a weakly dense subset of the domain of attraction of a positive stable random variable of index $0<α<1$($DOA\left(α\right))$ the functional stable convergence is a time-changed renewal convergence of distribution of finite mean. Applied to Continuous Time Random Walk(CTRW) á la Montroll and Wiess we show that CTRW with renewal times in a weakly dense set of $DOA\left(α\right)$ can be realized as random walk in a random environment. We find the quenched limit and give a bound on the error of the approximation.
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 $1 - Ce^{-(\log N)^2}$.
We derive laws of the iterated logarithm for random walks on random conductance models under the assumption that the random walks enjoy long time sub-Gaussian heat kernel estimates.
We present a random walk approximation to fractional Brownian motion where the increments of the fractional random walk are defined as a weighted sum of the past increments of a Bernoulli random walk.
We show that the `erasing-larger-loops-first' (ELLF) method, which was first introduced for erasing loops from the simple random walk on the Sierpinski gasket, does work also for non-Markov random walks, in particular, self-repelling walks to construct a new family of self-avoiding walks on the Sierpinski gasket. The one-parameter family constructed in this method continuously connects the loop-erased random walk and a self-avoiding walk which has the same asymptotic behavior as the `standard' self-avoiding walk. We prove the existence of the scaling limit and study some path properties: The e…
We establish scaling limits for the random walk whose state space is the range of a simple random walk on the four-dimensional integer lattice. These concern the asymptotic behaviour of the graph distance from the origin and the spatial location of the random walk in question. The limiting processes are the analogues of those for higher-dimensional versions of the model, but additional logarithmic terms in the scaling factors are needed to see these. The proof applies recently developed machinery relating the scaling of resistance metric spaces and stochastic processes, with key inputs being n…
We study the persistence exponent for random walks in random sceneries (RWRS) with integer values and for some special random walks in random environment in $\mathbb Z^2$ including random walks in $\mathbb Z^2$ with random orientations of the horizontal layers.
We consider laws of the iterated logarithm and the rate function for sample paths of random walks on random conductance models under the assumption that the random walks enjoy long time sub-Gaussian heat kernel estimates.
We introduce and summarise results from the recent paper 'Biased random walk on the trace of biased random walk on the trace of ...', which was written jointly with M. P. Holmes (University of Melbourne). We also present additional discussion on some of the conjectures made in that work. The content of this article is loosely based on the presentation given by the author at the Probability Symposium held at the Research Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Kyoto University in December 2018
There is a condition (T'), such that it is the necessary condition that a random walk in random environment is ballistic. Under this condition, we show the law of the iterated logarithm for a random walk in random environment.
We consider a recurrent random walk in random environment on a regular tree. Under suitable general assumptions upon the distribution of the environment, we show that the walk exhibits an unusual slow movement: the order of magnitude of the walk in the first $n$ steps is $(\log n)^3$.
We calculate explicit speeds for random walks in uniform degenerate random environments. For certain non-uniform random environments, we calculate speeds that are non-monotone.
We consider random walk among random conductances where the conductance environment is shift invariant and ergodic. We study which moment conditions of the conductances guarantee speed zero of the random walk. We show that if there exists α>1 such that E[log^α(ω_e)]<\infty, then the random walk has speed zero. On the other hand, for each α>1 we provide examples of random walks with non-zero speed and random walks for which the limiting speed does not exist that have E[log^α(ω_e)]<\infty.
We extend the notion of the associated random walk and the Wald martingale in random walks where the increments are independent and identically distributed to the more general case of stationary ergodic increments. Examples are given where the increments are Markovian or Gaussian, and an application in queueing is considered.
We consider a modulated process S which, conditional on a background process X, has independent increments. Assuming that S drifts to -infinity and that its increments (jumps) are heavy-tailed (in a sense made precise in the paper), we exhibit natural conditions under which the asymptotics of the tail distribution of the overall maximum of S can be computed. We present results in discrete and in continuous time. In particular, in the absence of modulation, the process S in continuous time reduces to a Levy process with heavy-tailed Levy measure. A central point of the paper is that we make ful…
We prove an estimate for the probability that a simple random walk in a simply connected subset A of Z^2 starting on the boundary exits A at another specified boundary point. The estimates are uniform over all domains of a given inradius. We apply these estimates to prove a conjecture of S. Fomin in 2001 concerning a relationship between crossing probabilities of loop-erased random walk and Brownian motion.
We consider a branching system of random walk in random environment (in location) in $\mathbb{N}$. We will give the exact limit value of $\frac{M_{n}}{n}$, where $M_{n}$ denotes the minimal position of branching random walk at time $n$. A key step in the proof is to transfer our branching random walks in random environment (in location) to branching random walks in random environment (in time), by use of Bramson's "branching processes within a branching process" .
We prove the existence of scaling limits for the projection on the backbone of the random walks on the Incipient Infinite Cluster and the Invasion Percolation Cluster on a regular tree. We treat these projected random walks as randomly trapped random walks (as defined in [BCČR15]) and thus describe these scaling limits as spatially subordinated Brownian motions
We are interested in the behaviour of the range of the Campanino and Pétritis random walk, namely a simple random walk on the lattice $\mathbb Z^2$ with random orientations of the horizontal layers. We also study the range of random walks in random scenery, from which the asymptotic behaviour of the range of the first coordinate of the Campanino and Pétritis random walk can be deduced.
We introduce a class of nearest-neighbor integer random walks in random and non-random media, which includes excited random walks considered in the literature. At each site the random walker has a drift to the right, the strength of which depends on the environment at that site and on how often the walker has visited that site before. We give exact criteria for recurrence and transience and consider the speed of the walk.
Associated to a random walk on $\mathbb{Z}$ and a positive integer $n$, there is a return probability of the random walk returning to the origin after $n$ steps. An interesting question is when the set of return probabilities uniquely determines the random walk. There are trivial situations where two different random walks have the same return probabilities. However, among random walks in which these situations do not occur, our main result states that the return probabilities do determine the random walk. As a corollary, we will obtain a result dealing with the representation theory of $\math…
The choice of the increment distribution is crucial for the random-walk Metropolis-Hastings (RWM) algorithm. In this paper we study the optimal choice in high-dimension setting among all possible increment distributions. The conclusion is rather counter intuitive, but the optimal rate of convergence is attained by the usual choice, the normal distribution as the increment distribution. In particular, no heavy-tailed increment distribution can improve the rate.
A random flight on a plane with non-isotropic displacements at the moments of direction changes is considered. In the case of exponentially distributed flight lengths a Gaussian limit theorem is proved for the position of a particle in the scheme of series when jump lengths and non-isotropic displacements tend to zero. If the flight lengths have a folded Cauchy distribution the limiting distribution of the particle position is a convolution of the circular bivariate Cauchy distribution with a Gaussian law.