No Arabic abstract
The dynamical discrete web (DDW), introduced in recent work of Howitt and Warren, is a system of coalescing simple symmetric one-dimensional random walks which evolve in an extra continuous dynamical parameter s. The evolution is by independent updating of the underlying Bernoulli variables indexed by discrete space-time that define the discrete web at any fixed s. In this paper, we study the existence of exceptional (random) values of s where the paths of the web do not behave like usual random walks and the Hausdorff dimension of the set of such exceptional s. Our results are motivated by those about exceptional times for dynamical percolation in high dimension by Haggstrom, Peres and Steif, and in dimension two by Schramm and Steif. The exceptional behavior of the walks in DDW is rather different from the situation for dynamical random walks of Benjamini, Haggstrom, Peres and Steif. In particular, we prove that there are exceptional values of s for which the walk from the origin S^s(n) has limsup S^s(n)/sqrt n leq K with a nontrivial dependence of the Hausdorff dimension on K. We also discuss how these and other results extend to the dynamical Brownian web, a natural scaling limit of DDW. The scaling limit is the focus of a paper in preparation; it was studied by Howitt and Warren and is related to the Brownian net of Sun and Swart.
The dynamical discrete web (DyDW),introduced in recent work of Howitt and Warren, is a system of coalescing simple symmetric one-dimensional random walks which evolve in an extra continuous dynamical time parameter tau. The evolution is by independent updating of the underlying Bernoulli variables indexed by discrete space-time that define the discrete web at any fixed tau. In this paper, we study the existence of exceptional (random) values of tau where the paths of the web do not behave like usual random walks and the Hausdorff dimension of the set of exceptional such tau. Our results are motivated by those about exceptional times for dynamical percolation in high dimension by H{a}ggstrom, Peres and Steif, and in dimension two by Schramm and Steif. The exceptional behavior of the walks in the DyDW is rather different from the situation for the dynamical random walks of Benjamini, H{a}ggstrom, Peres and Steif. For example, we prove that the walk from the origin S^tau_0 violates the law of the iterated logarithm (LIL) on a set of tau of Hausdorff dimension one. We also discuss how these and other results extend to the dynamical Brownian web, the natural scaling limit of the DyDW.
The Brownian web (BW), which developed from the work of Arratia and then T{o}th and Werner, is a random collection of paths (with specified starting points) in one plus one dimensional space-time that arises as the scaling limit of the discrete web (DW) of coalescing simple random walks. Two recently introduced extensions of the BW, the Brownian net (BN) constructed by Sun and Swart, and the dynamical Brownian web (DyBW) proposed by Howitt and Warren, are (or should be) scaling limits of corresponding discrete extensions of the DW -- the discrete net (DN) and the dynamical discrete web (DyDW). These discrete extensions have a natural geometric structure in which the underlying Bernoulli left or right arrow structure of the DW is extended by means of branching (i.e., allowing left and right simultaneously) to construct the DN or by means of switching (i.e., from left to right and vice-versa) to construct the DyDW. In this paper we show that there is a similar structure in the continuum where arrow direction is replaced by the left or right parity of the (1,2) space-time points of the BW (points with one incoming path from the past and two outgoing paths to the future, only one of which is a continuation of the incoming path). We then provide a complete construction of the DyBW and an alternate construction of the BN to that of Sun and Swart by proving that the switching or branching can be implemented by a Poissonian marking of the (1,2) points.
These lecture notes offer a gentle introduction to the two-dimensional Discrete Gaussian Free Field with particular attention paid to the scaling limits of the level sets at heights proportional to the absolute maximum. The bulk of the text is based on recent joint papers with O. Louidor and with J. Ding and S. Goswami. Still, new proofs of the tightness and distributional convergence of the centered DGFF maximum are presented that by-pass the use of the modified Branching Random Walk. The text contains a wealth of instructive exercises and a list of open questions and conjectures for future research.
For the Discrete Gaussian Free Field (DGFF) in domains $D_Nsubseteqmathbb Z^2$ arising, via scaling by $N$, from nice domains $Dsubseteqmathbb R^2$, we study the statistics of the values order-$sqrt{log N}$ below the absolute maximum. Encoded as a point process on $Dtimesmathbb R$, the scaled spatial distribution of these near-extremal level sets in $D_N$ and the field values (in units of $sqrt{log N}$ below the absolute maximum) tends in law as $Ntoinfty$ to the product of the critical Liouville Quantum Gravity (cLQG) $Z^D$ and the Rayleigh law. The convergence holds jointly with the extremal process, for which $Z^D$ enters as the intensity measure of the limiting Poisson point process, and that of the DGFF itself; the cLQG defined by the limit field then coincides with $Z^D$. While the limit near-extremal process is measurable with respect to the limit continuum GFF, the limit extremal process is not. Our results explain why the various ways to norm the lattice cLQG measure lead to the same limit object, modulo overall normalization.
Given a sequence of lattice approximations $D_Nsubsetmathbb Z^2$ of a bounded continuum domain $Dsubsetmathbb R^2$ with the vertices outside $D_N$ fused together into one boundary vertex $varrho$, we consider discrete-time simple random walks in $D_Ncup{varrho}$ run for a time proportional to the expected cover time and describe the scaling limit of the exceptional level sets of the thick, thin, light and avoided points. We show that these are distributed, up a spatially-dependent log-normal factor, as the zero-average Liouville Quantum Gravity measures in $D$. The limit law of the local time configuration at, and nearby, the exceptional points is determined as well. The results extend earlier work by the first two authors who analyzed the continuous-time problem in the parametrization by the local time at $varrho$. A novel uniqueness result concerning divisible random measures and, in particular, Gaussian Multiplicative Chaos, is derived as part of the proofs.