We study the random walk in random environment on {0,1,2,...}, where the environment is subject to a vanishing (random) perturbation. The two particular cases we consider are: (i) random walk in random environment perturbed from Sinai's regime; (ii) simple random walk with random perturbation. We give almost sure results on how far the random walker will be from the origin after a long time t, for almost every environment. We give both upper and lower almost sure bounds. These bounds are of order $(\log t)^β$, for $β\in (1,\infty)$, depending on the perturbation. In addition, in the ergodic cases, we give results on the rate of decay of the stationary distribution.
We consider random walks perturbed at zero which behave like (possibly different) random walks with i.i.d. increments on each half lines and restarts at $0$ whenever they cross that point. We show that the perturbed random walk, after being rescaled in a proper way, converges to a skew Brownian motion whose parameter is defined by renewal functions of the simple random walks and the transition probabilities from $0$.
In this paper we study some properties of random walks perturbed at extrema, which are generalizations of the walks considered e.g., in Davis (1999). This process can also be viewed as a version of {\em excited random walk}, studied recently by many authors. We obtain a few properties related to the range of the process with infinite memory. We also prove the Strong law, Central Limit Theorem, and the criterion for the recurrence of the perturbed walk with finite memory.
We consider a random walk in an i.i.d. random environment on Z that is perturbed by cookies of strength 1. The number of cookies per site is assumed to be i.i.d. Results on the speed of the random walk are obtained. Our main tool is the correspondence in certain cases between the random walk and a branching process in a random environment with migration.
Let $(ξ_1,η_1),(ξ_2,η_2),...$ be a sequence of i.i.d.\ copies of a random vector $(ξ,η)$ taking values in $\R^2$, and let $S_n := ξ_1+...+ξ_n$. The sequence $(S_{n-1} + η_n)_{n \geq 1}$ is then called perturbed random walk. We study random quantities defined in terms of the perturbed random walk: $τ(x)$, the first time the perturbed random walk exits the interval $(-\infty,x]$, $N(x)$, the number of visits to the interval $(-\infty,x]$, and $ρ(x)$, the last time the perturbed random walk visits the interval $(-\infty,x]$. We provide criteria for the a.s.\ finiteness and for the finiteness of e…
We study tails of the supremum of a perturbed random walk under regime which was not yet considered in the literature. Our approach is based on a new renewal theorem, which is of independent interest. We obtain first and second order asymptotics of the solution to renewal equation under weak assumptions and we apply these results to obtain first and second order asymptotics of the tail of the supremum of a perturbed random walk.
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 a discrete time simple symmetric random walk on Z^d, d>=1, where the path of the walk is perturbed by inserting deterministic jumps. We show that for any time n and any deterministic jumps that we insert, the expected number of sites visited by the perturbed random walk up to time n is always larger than or equal to that for the unperturbed walk. This intriguing problem arises from the study of a particle among a Poisson system of moving traps with sub-diffusive trap motion. In particular, our result implies a variant of the Pascal principle, which asserts that among all determinis…
We introduce a new random walk with unbounded memory obtained as a mixture of the Elephant Random Walk and the Dynamic Random Walk which we call the Dynamic Elephant Random Walk (DERW). As a consequence of this mixture the distribution of the increments of the resulting random process is time dependent. We prove a strong law of large numbers for the DERW and, in a particular case, we provide an explicit expression for its speed. Finally, we give sufficient conditions for the central limit theorem and the law of the iterated logarithm to hold.
We study a simple random walk on Z^2 with constraints on the axis. Motivation comes from physics when particles (a gas for example, see [Dal88]) are submitted to a local field. In our case we assume that the particle evolves freely in the cones but when touching the axis a force pushes it back progressively to the origin. The main result proves that this force can be parametrized in such a way that a renewal structure appears in the trajectory of the random walk. This implies the existence of an ergodic result for the parts of the trajectory restricted to the axis.
Consider a random walk $S=(S_n:n\geq 0)$ that is ``perturbed'' by a stationary sequence $(ξ_n:n\geq 0)$ to produce the process $(S_n+ξ_n:n\geq0)$. This paper is concerned with computing the distribution of the all-time maximum $M_{\infty}=\max \{S_k+ξ_k:k\geq0\}$ of perturbed random walk with a negative drift. Such a maximum arises in several different applications settings, including production systems, communications networks and insurance risk. Our main results describe asymptotics for $\mathbb{P}(M_{\infty}>x)$ as $x\to\infty$. The tail asymptotics depend greatly on whether the $ξ_n$'s are…
We consider diffusivity of random walks with transition probabilities depending on the number of consecutive traversals of the last traversed edge, the so called senile reinforced random walk (SeRW). In one dimension, the walk is known to be sub-diffusive with identity reinforcement function. We perturb the model by introducing a small probability $δ$ of escaping the last traversed edge at each step. The perturbed SeRW model is diffusive for any $δ>0 $, with enhanced diffusivity ($\gg O(δ^2)$) in the small $δ$ regime. We further study stochastically perturbed SeRW models by having the last edg…
Let $(ξ_k,η_k)_{k\in\mathbb{N}}$ be independent identically distributed random vectors with arbitrarily dependent positive components. We call a (globally) perturbed random walk a random sequence $(T_k)_{k\in\mathbb{N}}$ defined by $T_k:=ξ_1+\cdots+ξ_{k-1}+η_k$ for $k\in\mathbb{N}$. Further, by an iterated perturbed random walk is meant the sequence of point processes defining the birth times of individuals in subsequent generations of a general branching process provided that the birth times of the first generation individuals are given by a perturbed random walk. For $j\in\mathbb{N}$ and $t\…
In \cite{SzT}, D. Szász and A. Telcs have shown that for the diffusively scaled, simple symmetric random walk, weak convergence to the Brownian motion holds even in the case of local impurities if $d \ge 2$. The extension of their result to finite range random walks is straightforward. Here, however, we are interested in the situation when the random walk has unbounded range. Concretely we generalize the statement of \cite{SzT} to unbounded random walks whose jump distribution belongs to the domain of attraction of the normal law. We do this first: for diffusively scaled random walks on $\math…
We prove that the local time process of a planar simple random walk, when time is scaled logarithmically, converges to a non-degenerate pure jump process. The convergence takes place in the Skorokhod space with respect to the $M1$ topology and fails to hold in the $J1$ topology.
We use generalized Ray-Knight theorems introduced by Bálint Tóth in 1996 together with techniques developed for excited random walks as main tools for establishing positive and negative results concerning convergence of some classes of diffusively scaled self-interacting random walks (SIRWs) to Brownian motions perturbed at extrema (BMPE). Tóth's work studied two classes of SIRWs: asymptotically free and polynomially self-repelling walks. For both classes Toth has shown, in particular, that the distribution function of a scaled SIRW observed at independent geometric times converges to that of …
We consider one-dimensional excited random walks (ERWs) with i.i.d. markovian cookie stacks in the non-boundary recurrent regime. We prove that under diffusive scaling such an ERW converges in the standard Skorokhod topology to a multiple of Brownian motion perturbed at its extrema (BMPE). All parameters of the limiting process are given explicitly in terms of those of the cookie markov chain at a single site. While our results extend the results of Dolgopyat and Kosygina (2012, ERWs with boundedly many cookies per site) and Kosygina and Peterson (2016, ERWs with periodic cookie stacks), the a…
Consider a general branching process, a.k.a. Crump-Mode-Jagers process, generated by a perturbed random walk $η_1$, $ξ_1+η_2$, $ξ_1+ξ_2+η_3,\ldots$. Here, $(ξ_1,η_1)$, $(ξ_2, η_2),\ldots$ are independent identically distributed random vectors with arbitrarily dependent positive components. Denote by $N_j(t)$ the number of the $j$th generation individuals with birth times $\leq t$. Assume that $j=j(t)\to\infty$ and $j(t)=o(t^a)$ as $t\to\infty$ for some explicitly given $a>0$ (to be specified in the paper). The corresponding $j$th generation belongs to the set of intermediate generations. We pr…
We prove that the Beta random walk has second order cubic fluctuations from the large deviation principle of the GUE Tracy-Widom type for arbitrary values $\upalpha>0$ and $\upbeta>0$ of the parameters of the Beta distribution, removing previous restrictions on their values. Furthermore, we prove that the GUE Tracy-Widom fluctuations still hold in the intermediate disorder regime. We also show that any random walk in space-time random environment that matches certain moments with the Beta random walk also has GUE Tracy-Widom fluctuations in the intermediate disorder regime. As a corollary we s…
Let $(ξ_k,η_k)_{k\in\mathbb{N}}$ be independent identically distributed random vectors with arbitrarily dependent positive components. We call a (globally) perturbed random walk a random sequence $T:=(T_k)_{k\in\mathbb{N}}$ defined by $T_k:=ξ_1+\ldots+ξ_{k-1}+η_k$ for $k\in\mathbb{N}$. Consider a general branching process generated by $T$ and denote by $N_j(t)$ the number of the $j$th generation individuals with birth times $\leq t$. We treat early generations, that is, fixed generations $j$ which do not depend on $t$. In this setting we prove counterparts for $\mathbb{E}N_j$ of the Blackwell …
Place an obstacle with probability $1-p$ independently at each vertex of $\mathbb Z^d$, and run a simple random walk until hitting one of the obstacles. For $d\geq 2$ and $p$ strictly above the critical threshold for site percolation, we condition on the environment where the origin is contained in an infinite connected component free of obstacles, and we show that the following \emph{path localization} holds for environments with probability tending to 1 as $n\to \infty$: conditioned on survival up to time $n$ we have that ever since $o(n)$ steps the simple random walk is localized in a regio…
We study the enhanced diffusivity in the so called elephant random walk model with stops (ERWS) by including symmetric random walk steps at small probability $ε$. At any $ε> 0$, the large time behavior transitions from sub-diffusive at $ε= 0$ to diffusive in a wedge shaped parameter regime where the diffusivity is strictly above that in the un-perturbed ERWS model in the $ε\downarrow 0$ limit. The perturbed ERWS model is shown to be solvable with the first two moments and their asymptotics calculated exactly in both one and two space dimensions. The model provides a discrete analytical setting…
Let $ξ_1$, $ξ_2,\ldots$ be i.i.d. random variables of zero mean and finite variance and $η_1$, $η_2,\ldots$ positive i.i.d. random variables whose distribution belongs to the domain of attraction of an $α$-stable distribution, $α\in (0,1)$. The two collections are assumed independent. We consider a Markov chain with jumps of two types. If the present position of the Markov chain is positive, then the jump $ξ_k$ occurs; if the present position of the Markov chain is nonpositive, then its next position is $η_j$. We prove a functional limit theorem for this Markov chain under Donsker's scaling. T…
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…
A particle moves randomly over the integer points of the real line. Jumps of the particle outside the membrane (a fixed "locally perturbating set") are i.i.d., have zero mean and finite variance, whereas jumps of the particle from the membrane have other distributions with finite means which may be different for different points of the membrane; furthermore, these jumps are mutually independent and independent of the jumps outside the membrane. Assuming that the particle cannot jump over the membrane we prove that the weak scaling limit of the particle position is a skew Brownian motion with p…
We study the random walk $X$ on the range of a simple random walk on $\mathbb{Z}^d$ in dimensions $d\geq 4$. When $d\geq 5$ we establish quenched and annealed scaling limits for the process $X$, which show that the intersections of the original simple random walk path are essentially unimportant. For $d=4$ our results are less precise, but we are able to show that any scaling limit for $X$ will require logarithmic corrections to the polynomial scaling factors seen in higher dimensions. Furthermore, we demonstrate that when $d=4$ similar logarithmic corrections are necessary in describing the a…
There are two ways of speeding up MCMC algorithms: (1) construct more complex samplers that use gradient and higher order information about the target and (2) design a control variate to reduce the asymptotic variance. While the efficiency of (1) as a function of dimension has been studied extensively, this paper provides first rigorous results linking the growth of the asymptotic variance in (2) with dimension. Specifically, we construct a control variate for a $d$-dimensional Random walk Metropolis chain with an IID target using the solution of the Poisson equation for the scaling limit in t…
Let $(ξ_1,η_1)$, $(ξ_2,η_2),\ldots$ be a sequence of i.i.d. two-dimensional random vectors. In the earlier article Iksanov and Pilipenko (2014) weak convergence in the $J_1$-topology on the Skorokhod space of $n^{-1/2}\underset{0\leq k\leq \cdot}{\max}\,(ξ_1+\ldots+ξ_k+η_{k+1})$ was proved under the assumption that contributions of $\underset{0\leq k\leq n}{\max}\,(ξ_1+\ldots+ξ_k)$ and $\underset{1\leq k\leq n}{\max}\,η_k$ to the limit are comparable and that $n^{-1/2}(ξ_1+\ldots+ξ_{[n\cdot]})$ is attracted to a Brownian motion. In the present paper, we continue this line of research and inves…
We consider a two-node queue modeled as a two-dimensional random walk. In particular, we consider the case that one or both queues have finite buffers. We develop an approximation scheme based on the Markov reward approach to error bounds in order to bound performance measures of such random walks in terms of a perturbed random walk in which the transitions along the boundaries are different from those in the original model and the invariant measure of the perturbed random walk is of product-form. We then apply this approximation scheme to a tandem queue and some variants of this model, for th…
Cramer's theorem provides an estimate for the tail probability of the maximum of a random walk with negative drift and increments having a moment generating function finite in a neighborhood of the origin. The class of (g,F)-processes generalizes in a natural way random walks and fractional ARIMA models used in time series analysis. For those (g,F)-processes with negative drift, we obtain a logarithmic estimate of the tail probability of their maximum, under conditions comparable to Cramer's. Furthermore, we exhibit the most likely paths as well as the most likely behavior of the innovations l…
We study the quenched behaviour of a perturbed version of the simple symmetric random walk on the set of integers. The random walker moves symmetrically with an exception of some randomly chosen sites where we impose a random drift. We show that if the gaps between the marked sites are i.i.d. and regularly varying with a sufficiently small index, then there is no strong quenched limit laws for the position of the random walker. As a consequence we study the quenched limit laws in the context of weak convergence of random measures.
We study two variants of the notion of holes formed by planar simple random walk of time duration $2n$ and the areas associated with them. We prove in both cases that the number of holes of area greater than $A(n)$, where $\{A(n)\}$ is an increasing sequence, is, up to a logarithmic correction term, asymptotic to $n\cdot A(n)^{-1}$ for a range of large holes, thus confirming an observation by Mandelbrot. A consequence is that the largest hole has an area which is logarithmically asymptotic to $n$. We also discuss the different exponent of 5/3 observed by Mandelbrot for small holes.
We establish a variety of properties of the discrete time simple random walk on a Galton-Watson tree conditioned to survive when the offspring distribution, $Z$ say, is in the domain of attraction of a stable law with index $α\in(1,2]$. In particular, we are able to prove a quenched version of the result that the spectral dimension of the random walk is $2α/(2α-1)$. Furthermore, we demonstrate that when $α\in(1,2)$ there are logarithmic fluctuations in the quenched transition density of the simple random walk, which contrasts with the log-logarithmic fluctuations seen when $α=2$. In the course…
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 consider the random walk among random conductances on Z^d. We assume that the conductances are independent, identically distributed and uniformly bounded away from 0 and infinity. We obtain a quantitative version of the central limit theorem for this random walk, which takes the form of a Berry-Esseen estimate with speed t^{-1/10} for d < 3, and speed t^{-1/5} otherwise, up to logarithmic corrections.
We study the maximal displacement of branching random walks in a class of time inhomogeneous environments. Specifically, binary branching random walks with Gaussian increments will be considered, where the variances of the increments change over time macroscopically. We find the asymptotics of the maximum up to an $O_P(1)$ (stochastically bounded) error, and focus on the following phenomena: the profile of the variance matters, both to the leading (velocity) term and to the logarithmic correction term, and the latter exhibits a phase transition.
Let $G$ be a finitely generated group of polynomial volume growth equipped with a word-length $|\cdot|$. The goal of this paper is to develop techniques to study the behavior of random walks driven by symmetric measures $μ$ such that, for any $ε>0$, $\sum|\cdot|^εμ=\infty$. In particular, we provide a sharp lower bound for the return probability in the case when $μ$ has a finite weak-logarithmic moment.
A continuous-time random walk in the quarter plane with homogeneous transition rates is considered. Given a non-negative reward function on the state space, we are interested in the expected stationary performance. Since a direct derivation of the stationary probability distribution is not available in general, the performance is approximated by a perturbed random walk, whose transition rates on the boundaries are changed such that its stationary probability distribution is known in closed form. A perturbed random walk for which the stationary distribution is a sum of geometric terms is consid…
We derive an annealed large deviation principle for the normalised local times of a continuous-time random walk among random conductances in a finite domain in $\Z^d$ in the spirit of Donsker-Varadhan \cite{DV75}. We work in the interesting case that the conductances may assume arbitrarily small values. Thus, the underlying picture of the principle is a joint strategy of small values of the conductances and large holding times of the walk. The speed and the rate function of our principle are explicit in terms of the lower tails of the conductance distribution. As an application, we identify th…
We consider a cluster growth model on the d-dimensional lattice, called internal diffusion limited aggregation (internal DLA). In this model, random walks start at the origin, one at a time, and stop moving when reaching a site not occupied by previous walks. It is known that the asymptotic shape of the cluster is spherical. When dimension is 2 or more, we prove that fluctuations with respect to a sphere are at most a power of the logarithm of its radius in dimension d larger than or equal to 2. In so doing, we introduce a closely related cluster growth model, that we call the flashing process…
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 trace of the incipient infinite oriented branching random walk in $\mathbb{Z}^d \times \mathbb{Z}_+$ when the dimension is $d = 6$. Under suitable moment assumptions, we show that the electrical resistance between the root and level $n$ is $O(n \log^{-ξ}n )$ for a $ξ> 0$ that does not depend on details of the model.
We consider one-dimensional excited random walks (ERWs) with periodic cookie stacks in the recurrent regime. We prove functional limit theorems for these walks which extend the previous results of D. Dolgopyat and E. Kosygina for excited random walks with "boundedly many cookies per site." In particular, in the non-boundary recurrent case the rescaled excited random walk converges in the standard Skorokhod topology to a Brownian motion perturbed at its extrema (BMPE). While BMPE is a natural limiting object for excited random walks with boundedly many cookies per site, it is far from obvious w…
We prove that the susceptibility of the continuous-time weakly self-avoiding walk on $\mathbb{Z}^d$, in the critical dimension $d=4$, has a logarithmic correction to mean-field scaling behaviour as the critical point is approached, with exponent 1/4 for the logarithm. The susceptibility has been well understood previously for dimensions $d \geq 5$ using the lace expansion, but the lace expansion does not apply when $d=4$. The proof begins by rewriting the walk two-point function as the two-point function of a supersymmetric field theory. The field theory is then analysed via a rigorous renorma…
In this article, we study the maximal displacement in a branching random walk. We prove that its asymptotic behaviour consists in a first almost sure ballistic term, a negative logarithmic correction in probability and stochastically bounded fluctuations. This result, proved by Addario-Berry and Reed, and Hu and Shi is given here under close-to-optimal integrability conditions. We provide simple proofs for this result, also deducing the genealogical structure of the individuals that are close to the maximal displacement.
We consider random walks on finitely or countably generated free semigroups, and identify their Poisson boundaries for classes of measures which fail to meet the classical entropy criteria. In particular, we introduce the notion of w-logarithmic moment, and we show that if a random walk on a free semigroup has either finite entropy or finite w-logarithmic moment for some word w, then the space of infinite words with the resulting hitting measure is the Poisson boundary.
We study the persistence exponent for the first passage time of a random walk below the trajectory of another random walk. More precisely, let $\{B_n\}$ and $\{W_n\}$ be two centered, weakly dependent random walks. We establish that $\mathbb{P}(\forall_{n\leq N} B_n \geq W_n|W) = N^{-γ+ o(1)}$ for a non-random $γ\geq 1/2$. In the classical setting, $W_n \equiv 0$, it is well-known that $γ= 1/2$. We prove that for any non-trivial $W$ one has $γ>1/2$ and the exponent $γ$ depends only on $\text{Var}(B_1)/\text{Var}(W_1)$. Our result holds also in the continuous setting, when $B$ and $W$ are indep…
We describe scaling limits of recurrent excited random walks (ERWs) on integers in i.i.d. cookie environments with a bounded number of cookies per site. We allow both positive and negative excitations. It is known that ERW is recurrent if and only if the expected total drift per site, delta, belongs to the interval [-1,1]. We show that if |delta|<1 then the diffusively scaled ERW under the averaged measure converges to a (delta,-delta)-perturbed Brownian motion. In the boundary case, |delta|=1, the space scaling has to be adjusted by an extra logarithmic term, and the weak limit of ERW happens…
