We investigate the free energy of nearest-neighbor random walks on $\mathbb{Z}^d$, endowed with a drift along the first axis and evolving in a nonnegative random potential given by i.i.d. random variables. Our main result concerns the ballistic regime in dimensions $d\geq4$, at which we show that quenched and annealed Lyapunov exponents are equal as soon as the strength of the potential is small enough.
We consider the simple random walk on Z^d, d > 2, evolving in a potential of the form βV, where (V(x), x \in Z^d) are i.i.d. random variables taking values in [0,+\infty), and β > 0. When the potential is integrable, the asymptotic behaviours as β tends to 0 of the associated quenched and annealed Lyapunov exponents are known (and coincide). Here, we do not assume such integrability, and prove a sharp lower bound on the annealed Lyapunov exponent for small β. The result can be rephrased in terms of the decay of the averaged Green function of the Anderson Hamiltonian -Δ + βV.
We consider a simple random walk in an i.i.d. non-negative potential on the d-dimensional integer lattice, $d\geq 3$. We study the quenched Lyapunov exponents, and present a probabilistic proof of its continuity when the potentials converge in distribution.
We consider the simple random walk on the $d$-dimensional lattice $\mathbb{Z}^d$ ($d \geq 1$), traveling in potentials which are Bernoulli distributed. The so-called Lyapunov exponent describes the cost of traveling for the simple random walk in the potential, and it is known that the Lyapunov exponent is strictly monotone in the parameter of the Bernoulli distribution. Hence, the aim of this paper is to investigate the effect of the potential on the Lyapunov exponent more precisely, and we derive some Lipschitz-type estimates for the difference between the Lyapunov exponents.
We consider the simple random walk in i.i.d. nonnegative potentials on the $d$-dimensional cubic lattice $\mathbb{Z}^d$ ($d \geq 1$). In this model, the so-called Lyapunov exponent describes the cost of traveling for the simple random walk in the potential. The Lyapunov exponent depends on the distribution function of the potential, and the aim of this article is to prove that the Lyapunov exponent is strictly monotone in the distribution function of the potential with the order according to strict dominance. Furthermore, the comparison for the Lyapunov exponent also provides that for the rate…
We consider the simple random walk on $\mathbb{Z}^d$ evolving in a random i.i.d. potential taking values in $[0,+\infty)$. The potential is not assumed integrable, and can be rescaled by a multiplicative factor $λ> 0$. Completing the work started in a companion paper, we give the asymptotic behaviour of the Lyapunov exponents for $d \ge 3$, both annealed and quenched, as the scale parameter $λ$ tends to zero.
We study non-equilibrium defect accumulation dynamics on a cellular automaton trajectory: a branching walk process in which a defect creates a successor on any neighborhood site whose update it affects. On an infinite lattice, defects accumulate at different exponential rates in different directions, giving rise to the Lyapunov profile. This profile quantifies instability of a cellular automaton evolution and is connected to the theory of large deviations. We rigorously and empirically study Lyapunov profiles generated from random initial states. We also introduce explicit and computationally …
We consider the simple random walk on Z^d evolving in a potential of independent and identically distributed random variables taking values in [0, + \infty]. We give optimal conditions for the existence of the quenched point-to-point Lyapunov exponent, and for different versions of a shape theorem. The method of proof applies as well to first-passage percolation, and builds up on an approach of Cox and Durrett (1981). The weakest form of shape theorem holds whenever the set of sites with finite potential percolates. Under this condition, we then show the existence of the quenched point-to-hype…
We prove a shape theorem and derive a variational formula for the limiting quenched Lyapunov exponent and the Green's function of random walk in a random potential on a square lattice of arbitrary dimension and with an arbitrary finite set of steps. The potential is a function of a stationary environment and the step of the walk. This potential is subject to a moment assumption whose strictness is tied to the mixing of the environment. Our setting includes directed and undirected polymers, random walk in static and dynamic random environment, and, when the temperature is taken to zero, our res…
We consider a continuous-time symmetric branching random walk on multidimensional lattices with immigration and infinite number of initial particles. We assume that at every lattice point a process of birth and death of particles is described by a Bienayme-Galton- Watson branching process. The assumption on immigration of particles is that a new particle can appear at every lattice point from the outside. The subject of the study is a limit distribution of the particle field on the lattice. The differential equations for correlation functions for the number of particles at an arbitrary time mo…
In the first part of the article our subject of interest is a simple symmetric random walk on the integers which faces a random risk to be killed. This risk is described by random potentials, which in turn are defined by a sequence of independent and identically distributed non-negative random variables. To determine the risk of taking a walk in these potentials we consider the decay of the Green function. There are two possible tools to describe this decay: The quenched Lyapunov exponents and the annealed Lyapunov exponents. It turns out that on the integers we can state a precise relation be…
In this note, we show that the Lyapunov exponents of mixed products of random truncated Haar unitary and complex Ginibre matrices are asymptotically given by equally spaced `picket-fence' statistics. We discuss how these statistics should originate from the connection between random matrix products and multiplicative Brownian motion on $\operatorname{GL}_n(\mathbb{C})$, analogous to the connection between discrete random walks and ordinary Brownian motion. Our methods are based on contour integral formulas for products of classical matrix ensembles from integrable probability.
Our model is a constrained homogeneous random walk in a nonnegative orthant Z_+^d. The convergence to stationarity for such a random walk can often be checked by constructing a Lyapunov function. The same Lyapunov function can also be used for computing approximately the stationary distribution of this random walk, using methods developed by Meyn and Tweedie. In this paper we show that, for this type of random walks, computing the stationary probability exactly is an undecidable problem: no algorithm can exist to achieve this task. We then prove that computing large deviation rates for this mo…
We consider the simple random walk on supercritical percolation clusters in the multidimensional cubic lattice. In this model, a quenched large deviation principle holds for the position of the random walk. Its rate function depends on the law of the percolation configuration, and the aim of this paper is to study the continuity of the rate function in the law. To do this, it is useful that the rate function is expressed by the so-called Lyapunov exponent, which is the asymptotic cost paid by the random walk for traveling in a landscape of percolation configurations. In this context, we first …
We address the question of understanding the effect of the underlying network topology on the spread of a virus and the dissemination of information when users are mobile performing independent random walks on a graph. To this end we propose a simple model of infection that enables to study the coincidence time of two random walkers on an arbitrary graph. By studying the coincidence time of a susceptible and an infected individual both moving in the graph we obtain estimates of the infection probability. The main result of this paper is to pinpoint the impact of the network topology on the inf…
We establish large deviation principles and phase transition results for both quenched and annealed settings of nearest-neighbor random walks with constant drift in random nonnegative potentials on $\mathbb Z^d$. We complement the analysis of \cite{Zer}, where a shape theorem on the Lyapunov functions and a large deviation principle in absence of the drift are achieved for the quenched setting.
Any Zariski dense countable subgroup of $SL(d,R)$ is shown to carry a non-degenerate finitely supported symmetric random walk such that its harmonic measure on the flag space is singular. The main ingredients of the proof are: (1) a new upper estimate for the Hausdorff dimension of the projections of the harmonic measure onto Grassmannians in $R^d$ in terms of the associated differential entropies and differences between the Lyapunov exponents; (2) an explicit construction of random walks with uniformly bounded entropy and Lyapunov exponents going to infinity.
We give criteria for ergodicity, transience and null recurrence for the random walk in random environment on {0,1,2,...}, with reflection at the origin, where the random environment is subject to a vanishing perturbation. Our results complement existing criteria for random walks in random environments and for Markov chains with asymptotically zero drift, and are significantly different to these previously studied cases. Our method is based on a martingale technique - the method of Lyapunov functions.
We consider the solution $u$ to the one-dimensional parabolic Anderson model with homogeneous initial condition $u(0, \cdot) \equiv 1$, arbitrary drift and a time-independent potential bounded from above. Under ergodicity and independence conditions we derive representations for both the quenched Lyapunov exponent and, more importantly, the $p$-th annealed Lyapunov exponents for {\it all} $p \in (0, \infty).$ These results enable us to prove the heuristically plausible fact that the $p$-th annealed Lyapunov exponent converges to the quenched Lyapunov exponent as $p \downarrow 0.$ Furthermore, …
We prove that if $f$ is a $C^1$-generic symplectic diffeomorphism then the Oseledets splitting along almost every orbit is either trivial or partially hyperbolic. In addition, if $f$ is not Anosov then all the exponents in the center bundle vanish. This establishes in full a result announced by R. Mañé in the ICM 1983. The main technical novelty is a probabilistic method for the construction of perturbations, using random walks.
We consider a random walk in random environment with random holding times, that is, the random walk jumping to one of its nearest neighbors with some transition probability after a random holding time. Both the transition probabilities and the laws of the holding times are randomly distributed over the integer lattice. Our main result is a quenched large deviation principle for the position of the random walk. The rate function is given by the Legendre transform of the so-called Lyapunov exponents for the Laplace transform of the first passage time. By using this representation, we derive some…
In the present paper, we treat random matrix products on the general linear group $\textrm{GL}(V)$, where $V$ is a vector space defined on any local field, when the top Lyapunov exponent is simple, without irreducibility assumption. In particular, we show the existence and uniqueness of the stationary measure $ν$ on $\textrm{P}(V)$ that is relative to the top Lyapunov exponent and we describe the projective subspace generated by its support. We observe that the dynamics takes place in a open set of $\textrm{P}(V)$ which has the structure of a skew product space. Then, we relate this support to…
We consider the Random Walk Pinning Model studied in [3,2]: this is a random walk X on Z^d, whose law is modified by the exponential of βtimes L_N(X,Y), the collision local time up to time N with the (quenched) trajectory Y of another d-dimensional random walk. If βexceeds a certain critical value β_c, the two walks stick together for typical Y realizations (localized phase). A natural question is whether the disorder is relevant or not, that is whether the quenched and annealed systems have the same critical behavior. Birkner and Sun proved that β_c coincides with the critical point of the an…
We study survival of nearest-neighbour branching random walks in random environment (BRWRE) on ${\mathbb Z}$. A priori there are three different regimes of survival: global survival, local survival, and strong local survival. We show that local and strong local survival regimes coincide for BRWRE and that they can be characterized with the spectral radius of the first moment matrix of the process. These results are generalizations of the classification of BRWRE in recurrent and transient regimes. Our main result is a characterization of global survival that is given in terms of Lyapunov expone…
The contribution of this paper is to introduce change of measure based techniques for the rare-event analysis of heavy-tailed stochastic processes. Our changes-of-measure are parameterized by a family of distributions admitting a mixture form. We exploit our methodology to achieve two types of results. First, we construct Monte Carlo estimators that are strongly efficient (i.e. have bounded relative mean squared error as the event of interest becomes rare). These estimators are used to estimate both rare-event probabilities of interest and associated conditional expectations. We emphasize that…
In this paper, we analyse a sub-class of two-dimensional homogeneous nearest neighbour (simple) random walk restricted on the lattice using the matrix geometric approach. In particular, we first present an alternative approach for the calculation of the stability condition, extending the result of Neuts drift conditions [30] and connecting it with the result of Fayolle et al. which is based on Lyapunov functions [13]. Furthermore, we consider the sub-class of random walks with equilibrium distributions given as series of product-forms and, for this class of random walks, we calculate the eigen…
We continue our study of intermittency for the parabolic Anderson equation $\partial u/\partial t = κΔu + ξu$, where $u\colon \Z^d\times [0,\infty)\to\R$, $κ$ is the diffusion constant, $Δ$ is the discrete Laplacian, and $ξ\colon \Z^d\times [0,\infty)\to\R$ is a space-time random medium. The solution of the equation describes the evolution of a ``reactant'' $u$ under the influence of a ``catalyst'' $ξ$. In this paper we focus on the case where $ξ$ is exclusion with a symmetric random walk transition kernel, starting from equilibrium with density $ρ\in (0,1)$. We consider the annealed Lyapunov …
We prove a formula for the speed of distance stationary random sequences. A particular case is the classical formula for the largest Lyapunov exponent of an i.i.d. product of two by two matrices in terms of a stationary measure on projective space. We apply this result to Poisson-Delaunay random walks on Riemannian symmetric spaces. In particular, we obtain sharp estimates for the asymptotic behavior of the speed of hyperbolic Poisson-Delaunay random walks when the intensity of the Poisson point process goes to zero. This allows us to prove that a dimension drop phenomena occurs for the harmon…
We describe a model for $m$ vertex reinforced interacting random walks on complete graphs with $d\geq 2$ vertices. The transition probability of a random walk to a given vertex depends exponentially on the proportion of visits made by all walks to that vertex. The individual proportion of visits is modulated by a strength parameter that can be set equal to any real number. This model covers a large variety of interactions including different vertex repulsion and attraction strengths between any two random walks as well as self-reinforced interactions. We show that the process of empirical vert…
We continue our study of the parabolic Anderson equation $\partial u/\partial t = κΔu + γξu$ for the space-time field $u\colon\,\Z^d\times [0,\infty)\to\R$, where $κ\in [0,\infty)$ is the diffusion constant, $Δ$ is the discrete Laplacian, $γ\in (0,\infty)$ is the coupling constant, and $ξ\colon\,\Z^d\times [0,\infty)\to\R$ is a space-time random environment that drives the equation. The solution of this equation describes the evolution of a "reactant" $u$ under the influence of a "catalyst" $ξ$, both living on $\Z^d$. In earlier work we considered three choices for $ξ$: independent simple rand…
We establish spectral theorems for random walks on mapping class groups of connected, closed, oriented, hyperbolic surfaces, and on $\text{Out}(F_N)$. In both cases, we relate the asymptotics of the stretching factor of the diffeomorphism/automorphism obtained at time $n$ of the random walk to the Lyapunov exponent of the walk, which gives the typical growth rate of the length of a curve -- or of a conjugacy class in $F_N$ -- under a random product of diffeomorphisms/automorphisms. In the mapping class group case, we first observe that the drift of the random walk in the curve complex is also …
We study a random walk pinning model, where conditioned on a simple random walk Y on Z^d acting as a random medium, the path measure of a second independent simple random walk X up to time t is Gibbs transformed with Hamiltonian -L_t(X,Y), where L_t(X,Y) is the collision local time between X and Y up to time t. This model arises naturally in various contexts, including the study of the parabolic Anderson model with moving catalysts, the parabolic Anderson model with Brownian noise, and the directed polymer model. It falls in the same framework as the pinning and copolymer models, and exhibits …
The present paper provides an overview of results obtained in four recent papers by the authors. These papers address the problem of intermittency for the Parabolic Anderson Model in a \emph{time-dependent random medium}, describing the evolution of a ``reactant'' in the presence of a ``catalyst''. Three examples of catalysts are considered: (1) independent simple random walks; (2) symmetric exclusion process; (3) symmetric voter model. The focus is on the annealed Lyapunov exponents, i.e., the exponential growth rates of the successive moments of the reactant. It turns out that these exponent…
In this paper we study intermittency for the parabolic Anderson equation $\partial u/\partial t=κΔu+γξu$ with $u:\mathbb{Z}^d\times[0,\infty)\to\mathbb{R}$, where $κ\in[0,\infty)$ is the diffusion constant, $Δ$ is the discrete Laplacian, $γ\in(0,\infty)$ is the coupling constant, and $ξ:\mathbb{Z}^d\times[0,\infty)\to\mathbb{R}$ is a space--time random medium. The solution of this equation describes the evolution of a ``reactant'' $u$ under the influence of a ``catalyst'' $ξ$. We focus on the case where $ξ$ is the voter model with opinions 0 and 1 that are updated according to a random walk tr…
The goal of this article is two-fold: in a first part, we prove Azuma-Hoeffding type concentration inequalities around the drift for the displacement of non-elementary random walks on hyperbolic spaces. For a proper hyperbolic space $M$, we obtain explicit bounds that depend only on $M$, the size of support of the measure as in the classical case of sums of independent random variables, and on the norm of the driving probability measure in the left regular representation of the group of isometries. We obtain uniform bounds in the case of hyperbolic groups and effective bounds for simple linear…
We study the directed polymers in random environment on an infinite graph $G=(V,E)$ on which the underlying random walk satisfies sub-Gaussian heat kernel bounds with spectral dimension $d_{s}$ strictly less than two. Our goal in this paper is to show (i) the existence and the coincidence of the quenched and the annealed free energy $F_q(β)$, $F_a(β)$ and (ii) that $F_a(β)-F_q(β)$ is comparable to $β^{\frac{4}{2-d_{s}}}$ for small inverse temperature $β$.
Let $(X_n:n\geq 0)$ be a sequence of i.i.d. r.v.'s with negative mean. Set $S_0=0$ and define $S_n=X_1+... +X_n$. We propose an importance sampling algorithm to estimate the tail of $M=\max \{S_n:n\geq 0\}$ that is strongly efficient for both light and heavy-tailed increment distributions. Moreover, in the case of heavy-tailed increments and under additional technical assumptions, our estimator can be shown to have asymptotically vanishing relative variance in the sense that its coefficient of variation vanishes as the tail parameter increases. A key feature of our algorithm is that it is stat…
Let $V=\mathbb R^d$ be the Euclidean $d$-dimensional space, $μ$ (resp $λ$) a probability measure on the linear (resp affine) group $G=G L (V)$ (resp $H= \Aff (V))$ and assume that $μ$ is the projection of $λ$ on $G$. We study asymptotic properties of the iterated convolutions $μ^n *δ\_{v}$ (resp $λ^n*δ\_{v})$ if $v\in V$, i.e asymptotics of the random walk on $V$ defined by $μ$ (resp $λ$), if the subsemigroup $T\subset G$ (resp.\ $Σ\subset H$) generated by the support of $μ$ (resp $λ$) is "large". We show spectral gap properties for the convolution operator defined by $μ$ on spaces of homogene…
Convergence of directed forests, spanning on random subsets of lattices or on point processes, towards the Brownian web has made the subject of an abundant literature, a large part of which relies on a criterion proposed by Fontes, Isopi, Newman and Ravishankar (2004). One of their convergence condition, called (B2), states that the probability of the event that there exists three distinct paths for a time interval of length $t(>0)$, all starting within a segment of length $\varepsilon$, is of small order of $\varepsilon$. This condition is often verified by applying an FKG type correlation in…
We prove a formula for the speed of distance stationary random sequences generalizing the law of large numbers of Karlsson and Ledrappier. A particular case is the classical formula for the largest Lyapunov exponent of i.i.d.\ matrix products, but our result has applications in various different contexts. In many situations it gives a method to estimate the speed, and in others it allows to obtain results of dimension drop for escape measures related to random walks. We show applications to stationary reversible random trees with conductances, Bernoulli bond percolation of Cayley graphs, and r…
We continue our study of the parabolic Anderson equation $\partial u(x,t)/\partial t = κΔu(x,t) + ξ(x,t)u(x,t)$, $x\in\Z^d$, $t\geq 0$, where $κ\in [0,\infty)$ is the diffusion constant, $Δ$ is the discrete Laplacian, and $ξ$ plays the role of a \emph{dynamic random environment} that drives the equation. The initial condition $u(x,0)=u_0(x)$, $x\in\Z^d$, is taken to be non-negative and bounded. The solution of the parabolic Anderson equation describes the evolution of a field of particles performing independent simple random walks with binary branching: particles jump at rate $2dκ$, split into…
Consider an infinite system \[\partial_tu_t(x)=(\mathscr{L}u_t)(x)+ σ\bigl(u_t(x)\bigr)\partial_tB_t(x)\] of interacting Itô diffusions, started at a nonnegative deterministic bounded initial profile. We study local and global features of the solution under standard regularity assumptions on the nonlinearity $σ$. We will show that, locally in time, the solution behaves as a collection of independent diffusions. We prove also that the $k$th moment Lyapunov exponent is frequently of sharp order $k^2$, in contrast to the continuous-space stochastic heat equation whose $k$th moment Lyapunov expone…
In this paper we study the parabolic Anderson equation \partial u(x,t)/\partial t=κΔu(x,t)+ξ(x,t)u(x,t), x\in\Z^d, t\geq 0, where the u-field and the ξ-field are \R-valued, κ\in [0,\infty) is the diffusion constant, and $Δ$ is the discrete Laplacian. The initial condition u(x,0)=u_0(x), x\in\Z^d, is taken to be non-negative and bounded. The solution of the parabolic Anderson equation describes the evolution of a field of particles performing independent simple random walks with binary branching: particles jump at rate 2dκ, split into two at rate ξ\vee 0, and die at rate (-ξ)\vee 0. Our goal is…
The parabolic Anderson model is defined as the partial differential equation \partial u(x,t)/\partial t = κΔu(x,t) + ξ(x,t)u(x,t), x\in\Z^d, t\geq 0, where κ\in [0,\infty) is the diffusion constant, Δis the discrete Laplacian, and ξis a dynamic random environment that drives the equation. The initial condition u(x,0)=u_0(x), x\in\Z^d, is taken to be non-negative and bounded. The solution of the parabolic Anderson equation describes the evolution of a field of particles performing independent simple random walks with binary branching: particles jump at rate 2dκ, split into two at rate ξ\vee 0, …
This is a survey on the intermittent behavior of the parabolic {Anderson} model, which is the Cauchy problem for the heat equation with random potential on the lattice $\Z^d$. We first introduce the model and give heuristic explanations of the long-time behavior of the solution, both in the annealed and the quenched setting for time-independent potentials. We thereby consider examples of potentials studied in the literature. In the particularly important case of an i.i.d. potential with double-exponential tails we formulate the asymptotic results in detail. Furthermore, we explain that, under …
