We consider Gibbs distributions on permutations of a locally finite infinite set $Xsubsetmathbb{R}$, where a permutation $sigma$ of $X$ is assigned (formal) energy $sum_{xin X}V(sigma(x)-x)$. This is motivated by Feynmans path representation of the quantum Bose gas; the choice $X:=mathbb{Z}$ and $V(x):=alpha x^2$ is of principal interest. Under suitable regularity conditions on the set $X$ and the potential $V$, we establish existence and a full classification of the infinite-volume Gibbs measures for this problem, including a result on the number of infinite cycles of typical permutations. Unlike earlier results, our conclusions are not limited to small densities and/or high temperatures.
We show that nontrivial bi-infinite polymer Gibbs measures do not exist in typical environments in the inverse-gamma (or log-gamma) directed polymer model on the planar square lattice. The precise technical result is that, except for measures supported on straight-line paths, such Gibbs measures do not exist in almost every environment when the weights are independent and identically distributed inverse-gamma random variables. The proof proceeds by showing that when two endpoints of a point-to-point polymer distribution are taken to infinity in opposite directions but not parallel to lattice directions, the midpoint of the polymer path escapes. The proof is based on couplings, planar comparison arguments, and a recently discovered joint distribution of Busemann functions.
We prove a comprehensive version of the Ruelle-Perron-Frobenius Theorem with explicit estimates of the spectral radius of the Ruelle transfer operator and various other quantities related to spectral properties of this operator. The novelty here is that the Holder constant of the function generating the operator appears only polynomially, not exponentially as in previous known estimates.
We define a potential-weighted connective constant that measures the effective strength of a repulsive pair potential of a Gibbs point process modulated by the geometry of the underlying space. We then show that this definition leads to improved bounds for Gibbs uniqueness for all non-trivial repulsive pair potentials on $mathbb R^d$ and other metric measure spaces. We do this by constructing a tree-branching collection of densities associated to the point process that captures the interplay between the potential and the geometry of the space. When the activity is small as a function of the potential-weighted connective constant this object exhibits an infinite volume uniqueness property. On the other hand, we show that our uniqueness bound can be tight for certain spaces: the same infinite volume object exhibits non-uniqueness for activities above our bound in the case when the underlying space has the geometry of a tree.
We present a general method to derive continuity estimates for conditional probabilities of general (possibly continuous) spin models sub jected to local transformations. Such systems arise in the study of a stochastic time-evolution of Gibbs measures or as noisy observations. We exhibit the minimal necessary structure for such double-layer systems. Assuming no a priori metric on the local state spaces, we define the posterior metric on the local image space. We show that it allows in a natural way to divide the local part of the continuity estimates from the spatial part (which is treated by Dobrushin uniqueness here). We show in the concrete example of the time evolution of rotators on the q-1 dimensional sphere how this method can be used to obtain estimates in terms of the familiar Euclidean metric.