Hamiltonicity of random subgraphs of the hypercube

We study Hamiltonicity in random subgraphs of the hypercube $mathcal{Q}^n$. Our first main theorem is an optimal hitting time result. Consider the random process which includes the edges of $mathcal{Q}^n$ according to a uniformly chosen random ordering. Then, with high probability, as soon as the graph produced by this process has minimum degree $2k$, it contains $k$ edge-disjoint Hamilton cycles, for any fixed $kinmathbb{N}$. Secondly, we obtain a perturbation result: if $Hsubseteqmathcal{Q}^n$ satisfies $delta(H)geqalpha n$ with $alpha>0$ fixed and we consider a random binomial subgraph $mathcal{Q}^n_p$ of $mathcal{Q}^n$ with $pin(0,1]$ fixed, then with high probability $Hcupmathcal{Q}^n_p$ contains $k$ edge-disjoint Hamilton cycles, for any fixed $kinmathbb{N}$. In particular, both results resolve a long standing conjecture, posed e.g. by Bollobas, that the threshold probability for Hamiltonicity in the random binomial subgraph of the hypercube equals $1/2$. Our techniques also show that, with high probability, for all fixed $pin(0,1]$ the graph $mathcal{Q}^n_p$ contains an almost spanning cycle. Our methods involve branching processes, the Rodl nibble, and absorption.