Concentration and central limit theorem for the averaging process on $\mathbb{Z}^{d}$

Abstract

In the averaging process on a graph $G = (V, E)$, a random mass distribution $\eta$ on $V$ is repeatedly updated via transformations of the form $\eta_{v}, \eta_{w} \mapsto (\eta_{v} + \eta_{w})/2$, with updates made according to independent Poisson clocks associated to the edge set $E$. We study the averaging process when $G$ is the integer lattice $\mathbb{Z}^{d}$. We prove that the process has tight asymptotic concentration around its mean in the $\ell^{1}$ and $\ell^{2}$ norms and use this to prove a central limit theorem. Previous work by Nagahata and Yoshida implies the central limit theorem when $d \geq 3$. Our results extend this to hold for all $d \geq 1$, and our techniques are likely applicable to other processes for which previously only the $d \geq 3$ case was tractable.