We present a multiscale analysis for the exit measures from large balls in Z^d, d\geq 3, of random walks in certain i.i.d. random environments which are small perturbations of the fixed environment corresponding to simple random walk. Our main assumption is an isotropy assumption on the law of the environment, introduced by Bricmont and Kupianien. The analysis is based on propagating estimates on the variational distance between the exit measure and that of simple random walk, in addition to estimates on the variational distance between smoothed versions of these quantities.
In this paper we study the fluctuations from the limiting behavior of small noise random perturbations of diffusions with multiple scales. The result is then applied to the exit problem for multiscale diffusions, deriving the limiting law of the joint distribution of the exit time and exit location. We apply our results to the first order Langevin equation in a rough potential, studying both fluctuations around the typical behavior and the conditional limiting exit law, conditional on the rare event of going against the underlying deterministic flow.
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.
In order to approximate the exit time of a one-dimensional diffusion process, we propose an algorithm based on a random walk. Such an algorithm so-called Walk on Moving Spheres was already introduced in the Brownian context. The aim is therefore to generalize this numerical approach to the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process and to describe the efficiency of the method.
We consider a centered random walk with finite variance and investigate the asymptotic behaviour of the probability that the area under this walk remains positive up to a large time $n$. Assuming that the moment of order $2+δ$ is finite, we show that the exact asymptotics for this probability are $n^{-1/4}$. To show these asymptotics we develop a discrete potential theory for the integrated random walk.
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 consider random walks in Dirichlet environment, introduced by Enriquez and Sabot in 2006. As this distribution on environments is not uniformly elliptic, the annealed integrability of exit times out of a given finite subset is a non-trivial property. We provide here an explicit equivalent condition for this integrability to happen, on general directed graphs. Such integrability problems arise for instance from the definition of Kalikow auxiliary random walk. Using our condition, we prove a refined version of the ballisticity criterion given by Enriquez and Sabot.
We study exit laws from large balls in $\mathbb{Z}^d$, $d\geq3$, of random walks in an i.i.d. random environment that is a small perturbation of the environment corresponding to simple random walk. Under a centering condition on the measure governing the environment, we prove that the exit laws are close to those of a symmetric random walk, which we identify as a perturbed simple random walk. We obtain bounds on total variation distances as well as local results comparing exit probabilities on boundary segments. As an application, we prove transience of the random walks in random environment. …
In a recent paper, K. Raschel and R. Garbit proved that the exponential decreasing rate of the probability that a random walk (with all exponential moments) stays in a $d$-dimensional orthant is given by the minimum on this orthant of the Laplace transform of the random walk increments, as soon as this minimum exists. In other cases, the random walk is "badly oriented," and the exponential rate may depend on the starting point $x$. We prove here that this rate is nevertheless asymptotically equal to the infimum of the Laplace transform, as some selected coordinates of $x$ tend to infinity.
We describe the full exit boundary of random walks on homogeneous trees, in particular, on the free groups. This model exhibits a phase transition, namely, the family of Markov measures under study loses ergodicity as a parameter of the random walk changes. The problem under consideration is a special case of the problem of describing the invariant (central) measures on branching graphs, which covers a number of problems in combinatorics, representation theory, probability and was fully stated in a series of recent papers by the first author \cite{V1,V2,V3}. On the other hand, in the context o…
Let $X = (X_1, X_2)$ be a 2-dimensional random variable and $X(n), n \in \mathbb{N}$ a sequence of i.i.d. copies of $X$. The associated random walk is $S(n)= X(1) + \cdots +X(n)$. The corresponding absorbed-reflected walk $W(n), n \in \mathbb{N}$ in the first quadrant is given by $W(0) = x \in \mathbb{R}_+^2$ and $W(n) = \max \{ 0, W(n-1) - X(n) \}$, where the maximum is taken coordinate-wise. This is often called the Lindley process and models the waiting times in a two-server queue. We characterize recurrence of this process, assuming suitable, rather mild moment conditions on $X$. It turns …
In this paper we introduce a new method for the simulation of the exit time and position of a $δ$-dimensional Brownian motion from a domain. The main interest of our method is that it avoids splitting time schemes as well as inversion of complicated series. The idea is to use the connexion between the $δ$-dimensional Bessel process and the $δ$-dimensional Brownian motion thanks to an explicit Bessel hitting time distribution associated with a particular curved boundary. This allows to build a fast and accurate numerical scheme for approximating the hitting time. Numerical comparisons with exis…
We consider the scaling behavior of the range and $p$-multiple range, that is the number of points visited and the number of points visited exactly $p\geq 1$ times, of simple random walk on ${\mathbb Z}^d$, for dimensions $d\geq 2$, up to time of exit from a domain $D_N$ of the form $D_N = ND$ where $D\subset {\mathbb R}^d$, as $N\uparrow\infty$. Recent papers have discussed connections of the range and related statistics with the Gaussian free field, identifying in particular that the distributional scaling limit for the range, in the case $D$ is a cube in $d\geq 3$, is proportional to the ex…
Let $σ$ be a permutation of $\{0,\ldots,n\}$. We consider the Markov chain $X$ which jumps from $k\neq 0,n$ to $σ(k+1)$ or $σ(k-1)$, equally likely. When $X$ is at 0 it jumps to either $σ(0)$ or $σ(1)$ equally likely, and when $X$ is at $n$ it jumps to either $σ(n)$ or $σ(n-1)$, equally likely. We show that the identity permutation maximizes the expected hitting time of n, when the walk starts at 0. More generally, we prove that the hitting time of a random walk on a strongly connected $d$-directed graph is maximized when the graph is the line $[0,n]\cap\Z$ with $d-2$ self-loops at every verte…
We consider the one-sided exit problem for (fractionally) integrated random walks and Lévy processes. We prove that the rate of decrease of the non-exit probability -- the so-called survival exponent -- is universal in this class of processes. In particular, the survival exponent can be inferred from the (fractionally) integrated Brownian motion. This, in particular, extends Sinai's result on the survival exponent for the integrated simple random walk to general random walks with some finite exponential moment. Further, we prove existence and monotonicity of the survival exponent of fractional…
We investigate harmonic functions and the convergence of the sequence of ratios $(P_x(τ_\vartheta {>} n)/P_e(τ_\vartheta {>} n))$ for a random walk on a countable group killed up on the time $τ_\vartheta$ of the first exit from some semi-group with an identity element $e$. Several results of classical renewal theory for one dimensional random walk killed at the first exit from the positive half-line are extended to a multi-dimensional setting. For this purpose, an analogue of the ladder height process and the corresponding renewal function $V$ are introduced. The results are applied to multidi…
We investigate Martin boundary for a non-centered random walk on ${\mathbb Z}^d$ killed up on the time $τ_\vartheta$ of the first exit from a convex cone with a vertex at $0$. The approach combines large deviation estimates, the ratio limite theorem and the ladder height process. The results are applied to identify the Martin boundary for a random walk killed upon the first exit from a convex cone having $C^1$ boundary.
We compute the exponential decay of the probability that a given multi-dimensional random walk stays in a convex cone up to time $n$, as $n$ goes to infinity. We show that the latter equals the minimum, on the dual cone, of the Laplace transform of the random walk increments. As an example, our results find applications in the counting of walks in orthants, a classical domain in enumerative combinatorics.
Let $S=(S_n)$ be an oscillatory random walk on the integer lattice $\mathbb{Z}$ with i.i.d. increments. Let $V_{\rm d}(x)$ be the renewal function of the strictly descending ladder height process for $S$. We obtain several sufficient conditions -- given in terms of the distribution function of the increment $S_1-S_0$ -- so that as $R\to\infty$ $$ (*) \quad P [ S\; \mbox{leaves $[0,R]$ on its upper side}\, |\, S_0=x] \, \sim\, V_{\rm d}(x)/V_{\rm d}(R)$$ uniformly for $0\leq x\leq R$. When $S$ is attracted to a stable process of index $0<α\leq 2$ and there exists $ρ= \lim P[S_n>0]$, the suffici…
By appealing to renewal theory we determine the equations that the mean exit time of a continuous-time random walk with drift satisfies both when the present coincides with a jump instant or when it does not. Particular attention is paid to the corrections ensuing from the non-Markovian nature of the process. We show that when drift and jumps have the same sign the relevant integral equations can be solved in closed form. The case when holding times have the classical Erlang distribution is considered in detail.
Let $X$ be the constrained random walk on ${\mathbb Z}_+^d$ representing the queue lengths of a stable Jackson network and $x$ its initial position. Let $τ_n$ be the first time the sum of the components of $X$ equals $n$. $p_n \doteq P_x(τ_n < τ_0)$ is a key performance measure for the queueing system represented by $X$, stability implies $p_n\rightarrow 0$ exponentially. Currently the only analytic method available to approximate $p_n$ is large deviations analysis, which gives the exponential decay rate of $p_n$. Finer results are available via rare event simulation. The present article devel…
We consider open quantum walks on a graph, and consider the random variables defined as the passage time and number of visits to a given point of the graph. We study in particular the probability that the passage time is finite, the expectation of that passage time, and the expectation of the number of visits, and discuss the notion of recurrence for open quantum walks. We also study exit times and exit probabilities from a finite domain, and use them to solve Dirichlet problems and to determine harmonic measures. We consider in particular the case of irreducible open quantum walks. The result…
Let $(X_n)_{n\geq 0}$ be a reversible random walk on a graph $G$ satisfying an anchored isoperimetric inequality. We give upper bounds for exit time (and occupation time in transient case) by X of any set which contains the root. As an application, we consider random environments of $\Z^d$.
This paper presents necessary and sufficient conditions for on- and off-diagonal transition probability estimates for random walks on weighted graphs. On the integer lattice and on may fractal type graphs both the volume of a ball and the mean exit time from a ball is independent of the centre, uniform in space. Here the upper estimate is given without such restriction and two-sided estimate is given if uniformity in the space assumed only for the mean exit time.
Consider a random walk in an i.i.d. uniformly elliptic environment in dimensions larger than one. In 2002, Sznitman introduced for each $γ\in(0,1)$ the ballisticity condition $(T)_γ$ and the condition $(T')$ defined as the fulfillment of $(T)_γ$ for each $γ\in(0,1)$. Sznitman proved that $(T')$ implies a ballistic law of large numbers. Furthermore, he showed that for all $γ\in (0.5,1)$, $(T)_γ$ is equivalent to $(T')$. Recently, Berger has proved that in dimensions larger than three, for each $γ\in (0,1)$, condition $(T)_γ$ implies a ballistic law of large numbers. On the other hand, Drewitz a…
Let $N$ be a positive integer, $c$ be a positive constant and $(U_n)_{n\ge 1}$ be a sequence of independent identically distributed pseudo-random variables. We assume that the $U_n$'s take their values in the discrete set $\{-N,-N+1,...,N-1,N\}$ and that their common pseudo-distribution is characterized by the \textit{(positive or negative) real} numbers \[\mathbb{P}\{U_n=k\}=δ_{k0}+(-1)^{k-1} c\binom{2N}{k+N}\] for any $k\in\{-N,-N+1,...,N-1,N\}$. Let us finally introduce $(S_n)_{n\ge 0}$ the associated pseudo-random walk defined on $\mathbb{Z}$ by $S_0=0$ and $S_n=\sum_{j=1}^n U_j$ for $n\ge…
We study quantitative asymptotics of planar random walks that are spatially non-homogeneous but whose mean drifts have some regularity. Specifically, we study the first exit time $τ_α$ from a wedge with apex at the origin and interior half-angle $α$ by a non-homogeneous random walk on the square lattice with mean drift at $x$ of magnitude $O(1/|x|)$ as $|x| \to \infty$. This is the critical regime for the asymptotic behaviour: under mild conditions, a previous result of the authors (see arXiv:0910.1772) stated that $τ_α< \infty$ a.s. for any $α$ (while for a stronger drift field $τ_α$ is infin…
Given a permutation sigma of the integers {-n,-n+1,...,n} we consider the Markov chain X_{sigma}, which jumps from k to sigma (k\pm 1) equally likely if k\neq -n,n. We prove that the expected hitting time of {-n,n} starting from any point is Theta(n) with high probability when sigma is a uniformly chosen permutation. We prove this by showing that with high probability, the digraph of allowed transitions is an Eulerian expander; we then utilize general estimates of hitting times in directed Eulerian expanders.
In the present paper, Ito formula and Tanaka formula for a special kind of symmetric random walk in the complex plain are studied. The random walk is called Parisian walk, and its local time is defined to be the number of exit from some regions.
The range, local times, and periodicity of symmetric, weakly asymmetric and asymmetric random walks at the time of exit from a strip with $N$ locations are considered. Several results on asymptotic distributions are obtained.
It has been proved that the distribution of the point where the Smart Kinetic Walk (SKW) exits a domain converges in distribution to harmonic measure on the hexagonal lattice. For other lattices, it is believed that this result still holds, and there is good numerical evidence to support this conjecture. Here we examine the effect of the symmetry and asymmetry of the transition probability on each step of the SKW on the square lattice and test if the exit distribution converges in distribution to harmonic measure as well. From our simulations, the limiting exit distribution of the SKW with a n…
We study behavior in space and time of random walks in an i.i.d. random environment on Z^d, d>=3. It is assumed that the measure governing the environment is isotropic and concentrated on environments that are small perturbations of the fixed environment corresponding to simple random walk. We develop a revised and extended version of the paper of Bolthausen and Zeitouni (2007) on exit laws from large balls, which, as we hope, is easier to follow. Further, we study mean sojourn times in balls. This work is part of the author's PhD thesis under the supervision of Erwin Bolthausen. A generalizat…
Let $F$ be a distribution function on the integer lattice $\mathbb{Z}$ and $S=(S_n)$ the random walk with step distribution $F$. Suppose $S$ is oscillatory and denote by $U_{\rm a}(x)$ and $u_{\rm a}(x)$ the renewal function and sequence, respectively, of the strictly ascending ladder height process associated with $S$. Putting $A(x) =\int_0^x [1-F(t)-F(-t)] dt$, $H(x)=1-F(x)+F(-x)$ we suppose $$A(x)/\big(xH(x)\big) \to -\infty \quad (x\to\infty).$$ Under some additional regularity condition on the positive tail of $F$, we show that $$u_{\rm a}(x) \sim U_{\rm a}(x)[1-F(x)]/|A(x)|$$ as $x\to\in…
We prove that a planar random walk with bounded increments and mean zero which is conditioned to stay in a cone converges weakly to the corresponding Brownian meander if and only if the tail distribution of the exit time from the cone is regularly varying. This condition is satisfied in many natural examples.
Let $X$ be the constrained random walk on ${\mathbb Z}_+^2$ having increments $(1,0)$, $(-1,1)$, $(0,-1)$ with jump probabilities $λ(M_k)$, $μ_1(M_k)$, and $μ_2(M_k)$ where $M$ is an irreducible aperiodic finite state Markov chain. The process $X$ represents the lengths of two tandem queues with arrival rate $λ(M_k)$, and service rates $μ_1(M_k)$, and $μ_2(M_k)$. We assume that the average arrival rate with respect to the stationary measure of $M$ is less than the average service rates, i.e., $X$ is assumed stable. Let $τ_n$ be the first time when the sum of the components of $X$ equals $n$ fo…
We consider a symmetric random walk on the $ν$-dimensional lattice, whose exit probability from the origin is modified by an antisymmetric perturbation and prove the local central limit theorem for this process. A short-range correction to diffusive behaviour appears in any dimension along with a long-range correction in the one-dimensional case.
We consider multidimensional discrete valued random walks with nonzero drift killed when leaving general cones of the euclidian space. We find the asymptotics for the exit time from the cone and study weak convergence of the process conditioned on not leaving the cone. We get quasistationarity of its limiting distribution. Finally we construct a version of the random walk conditioned to never leave the cone.
Non-trivial linear bounds are obtained for the displacement of a random walk in a dynamic random environment given by a one-dimensional simple symmetric exclusion process in equilibrium. The proof uses an adaptation of multiscale renormalization methods of Kesten and Sidoravicius.
We study simple random walk on the uniform spanning tree on Z^2 . We obtain estimates for the transition probabilities of the random walk, the distance of the walk from its starting point after n steps, and exit times of both Euclidean balls and balls in the intrinsic graph metric. In particular, we prove that the spectral dimension of the uniform spanning tree on Z^2 is 16/13 almost surely.
It is conjectured that in dimensions $d\ge 2$ any random walk in an i.i.d. uniformly elliptic random environment (RWRE) which is directionally transient is ballistic. The ballisticity conditions for RWRE somehow interpolate between directional transience and ballisticity and have served to quantify the gap which would need to be proven in order to answer affirmatively this conjecture. Two important ballisticity conditions introduced by Sznitman \cite{Sz02} in 2001 and 2002 are the so called conditions $(T')$ and $(T)$: given a slab of width $L$ orthogonal to $l$, condition $(T')$ in direction …
We study three different random walk models on several two-dimensional lattices by Monte Carlo simulations. One is the usual nearest neighbor random walk. Another is the nearest neighbor random walk which is not allowed to backtrack. The final model is the smart kinetic walk. For all three of these models the distribution of the point where the walk exits a simply connected domain $D$ in the plane converges weakly to harmonic measure on $\partial D$ as the lattice spacing $δ\rightarrow 0$. Let $ω(0,|dz|;D)$ be harmonic measure for $D$, and let $ω_δ(0,|dz|;D)$ be the discrete harmonic measure f…
We consider elliptic random walks in i.i.d. random environments on $\mathbb{Z}^d$. The main goal of this paper is to study under which ellipticity conditions local trapping occurs. Our main result is to exhibit an ellipticity criterion for ballistic behavior which extends previously known results. We also show that if the annealed expected exit time of a unit hypercube is infinite then the walk has zero asymptotic velocity.
The conditions $(T)_γ,$ $γ\in (0,1),$ which have been introduced by Sznitman in 2002, have had a significant impact on research in random walk in random environment. Among others, these conditions entail a ballistic behaviour as well as an invariance principle. They require the stretched exponential decay of certain slab exit probabilities for the random walk under the averaged measure and are asymptotic in nature. The main goal of this paper is to show that in all relevant dimensions (i.e., $d \ge 2$), in order to establish the conditions $(T)_γ$, it is actually enough to check a correspondin…
We consider the range of a one-parameter family of self-interacting walks on the integers up to the time of exit from an interval. We derive the weak convergence of an appropriately scaled range. We show that the distribution functions of the limits of the scaled range satisfy a certain class of de Rham's functional equations. We examine the regularity of the limits.
We study the pioneer points of the simple random walk on the uniform infinite planar quadrangulation (UIPQ) using an adaptation of the peeling procedure of Angel to the quadrangulation case. Our main result is that, up to polylogarithmic factors, $n^3$ pioneer points have been discovered before the walk exits the ball of radius $n$ in the UIPQ. As a result we verify the KPZ relation in the particular case of the pioneer exponent and prove that the walk is subdiffusive with exponent less than 1/3. Along the way, new geometric controls on the UIPQ are established.
For a zero-delayed random walk on the real line, let $τ(x)$, $N(x)$ and $ρ(x)$ denote the first passage time into the interval $(x,\infty)$, the number of visits to the interval $(-\infty,x]$ and the last exit time from $(-\infty,x]$, respectively. In the present paper, we provide ultimate criteria for the finiteness of exponential moments of these quantities. Moreover, whenever these moments are finite, we derive their asymptotic behaviour, as $x \to \infty$.
Let $M_{n}$ be the length (number of steps) of the loop-erasure of a simple random walk up to the first exit from a ball of radius $n$ centered at its starting point. It is shown in [18] that there exists $β\in (1, \frac{5}{3}]$ such that $E (M_{n} )$ is of order $n^β$ in 3 dimensions. In the present article, we show that the Hausdorff dimension of the scaling limit of the loop-erased random walk in 3 dimensions is equal to $β$ almost surely.
We consider random walks among random conductances on $\mathbb{Z}^2$ and establish precise asymptotics for the associated potential kernel and the Green's function of the walk killed upon exiting balls. The result is proven for random walks on i.i.d. supercritical percolation clusters among ergodic degenerate conductances satisfying a moment condition. We also provide a similar result for the time-dynamic random conductance model. As an application we present a scaling limit for the variances in the Ginzburg-Landau $\nabla ϕ$-interface model.
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 this paper we continue our study of exit times for random walks with independent but not necessarily identical distributed increments. Our paper "First-passage times for random walks with non-identically distributed increments" was devoted to the case when the random walk is constructed by a fixed sequence of independent random variables which satisfies the classical Lindeberg condition. Now we consider a more general situation when we have a triangular array of independent random variables. Our main assumption is that the entries of every row are uniformly bounded by a constant, which tend…
In this paper we consider the natural random walk on a planar graph and scale it by a small positive number $δ$. Given a simply connected domain $D$ and its two boundary points $a$ and $b$, we start the scaled walk at a vertex of the graph nearby $a$ and condition it on its exiting $D$ through a vertex nearby $b$, and prove that the loop erasure of the conditioned walk converges, as $δ\downarrow 0$, to the chordal SLE$_{2}$ that connects $a$ and $b$ in $D$, provided that an invariance principle is valid for both the random walk and the dual walk of it.
We prove that the dimension drop phenomenon holds for the harmonic measure associated to a transient random walk in a random environment (as defined by R. Lyons and R. Pemantle in 1992 and generalized by G. Faraud in 2011) on an infinite Galton-Watson tree without leaves. We use regeneration times and ergodic theory techniques from the work of R. Lyons, R. Pemantle and Y. Peres in 1996 to give an explicit construction of the invariant measure for the forward environment seen by the particule at exit times which is absolutely continuous with respect to the joint law of the tree and the path of …
For a Markov chain $Y$ with values in a Polish space, consider the entrance Markov chain obtained by sampling $Y$ at the moments when it enters a fixed set $A$ from its complement $A^c$. Similarly, consider the exit Markov chain, obtained by sampling $Y$ at the exit times from $A^c$ to $A$. This paper provides a framework for analysing invariant measures of these two types of Markov chains in the case when the initial chain $Y$ has a known $σ$-finite invariant measure. Under certain recurrence-type assumptions ($Y$ can be transient), we give explicit formulas for invariant measures of these ch…
