Rainbow percolation

Abstract

We consider the weight-dependent random connection model on a Poisson point process of intensity $\lambda$ on $\mathbb{R}\times(0,1)$ in which the vertices $(x,t)$ and $(y,s)$ are joined precisely when $(t\vee s)|x-y|\le\beta$. Points at distance $d$ are joined with probability $\min(1,\beta/d)^2$, the critical decay of one-dimensional long-range percolation, and edges sharing a vertex are dependent through the common mark. We prove that the model has a genuine phase transition: for $\lambda\beta<1$ almost surely all connected components are finite, while for $\lambda\beta\ge31$ an infinite component exists, so at intensity one the critical value satisfies $\beta_c\in[1,31]$; a numerical study included as an appendix places it near $2$. By kernel and profile comparisons the supercritical bound extends to the age-dependent random connection model on the line, which with indicator profile has a non-degenerate phase transition at every value of its parameter, closing a case of the one-dimensional phase diagram left open in earlier work. The lower bound is proved by disconnecting nested pairs of long edges ("rainbows") with cut-point certificates, an argument developed first in a discrete skeleton of the model with the vertices pinned to $\mathbb{Z}$. The skeleton is of independent interest: it has no supercritical phase at all, jumping from total fragmentation to trivial connectivity even though almost surely infinitely many edges cross every fixed site. The supercritical argument is a Peierls argument on the binary tiling of the hyperbolic half-plane.