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Ewain Gwynne

Publications and source records attributed to Ewain Gwynne.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2021

Geodesic networks in Liouville quantum gravity surfaces

Recent work has shown that for $γ\in (0,2)$, a Liouville quantum gravity (LQG) surface can be endowed with a canonical metric. We prove several results concerning geodesics for this metric. In particular, we completely classify the possible networks of geodesics from a typical point on the surface to an arbitrary point on the surface, as well as the types of networks of geodesics joining two points which occur for a dense set of pairs of points on the surface. This latter result is the $γ$-LQG analog of the classification of geodesic networks in the Brownian map due to Angel, Kolesnik, and Miermont (2017). We also show that there is a deterministic $m\in\mathbb N$ such that almost surely any two points are joined by at most $m$ distinct LQG geodesics.

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arXiv2021

An invariance principle for ergodic scale-free random environments

There are many classical random walk in random environment results that apply to ergodic random planar environments. We extend some of these results to random environments in which the length scale varies from place to place, so that the law of the environment is in a certain sense only translation invariant {\em modulo scaling}. For our purposes, an ``environment'' consists of an infinite random planar map embedded in $\mathbb C$, each of whose edges comes with a positive real conductance. Our main result is that under modest constraints (translation invariance modulo scaling together with the finiteness of a type of specific energy) a random walk in this kind of environment converges to Brownian motion modulo time parameterization in the quenched sense. Environments of the type considered here arise naturally in the study of random planar maps and Liouville quantum gravity. In fact, the results of this paper are used in separate works to prove that certain random planar maps (embedded in the plane via the so-called Tutte embedding) have scaling limits given by SLE-decorated Liouville quantum gravity, and also to provide a more explicit construction of Brownian motion on the Brownian map. However, the results of this paper are much more general and can be read independently of that program. One general consequence of our main result is that if a translation invariant (modulo scaling) random embedded planar map and its dual have finite energy per area, then they are close on large scales to a minimal energy embedding (the harmonic embedding). To establish Brownian motion convergence for an {\em infinite} energy embedding, it suffices to show that one can perturb it to make the energy finite.

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arXiv2021

Joint scaling limit of site percolation on random triangulations in the metric and peanosphere sense

Recent works have shown that random triangulations decorated by critical ($p=1/2$) Bernoulli site percolation converge in the scaling limit to a $\sqrt{8/3}$-Liouville quantum gravity (LQG) surface (equivalently, a Brownian surface) decorated by SLE$_6$ in two different ways: 1. The triangulation, viewed as a curve-decorated metric measure space equipped with its graph distance, the counting measure on vertices, and a single percolation interface converges with respect to a version of the Gromov-Hausdorff topology. 2. There is a bijective encoding of the site-percolated triangulation by means of a two-dimensional random walk, and this walk converges to the correlated two-dimensional Brownian motion which encodes SLE$_6$-decorated $\sqrt{8/3}$-LQG via the mating-of-trees theorem of Duplantier-Miller-Sheffield (2014); this is sometimes called $\textit{peanosphere convergence}$. We prove that one in fact has $\textit{joint}$ convergence in both of these two senses simultaneously. We also improve the metric convergence result by showing that the map decorated by the full collection of percolation interfaces (rather than just a single interface) converges to $\sqrt{8/3}$-LQG decorated by CLE$_6$ in the metric space sense. This is the first work to prove simultaneous convergence of any random planar map model in the metric and peanosphere senses. Moreover, this work is an important step in an ongoing program to prove that random triangulations embedded into $\mathbb C$ via the so-called $\textit{Cardy embedding}$ converge to $\sqrt{8/3}$-LQG.

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arXiv2021

Tightness of supercritical Liouville first passage percolation

Liouville first passage percolation (LFPP) with parameter $ξ>0$ is the family of random distance functions $\{D_h^ε\}_{ε>0}$ on the plane obtained by integrating $e^{ξh_ε}$ along paths, where $h_ε$ for $ε>0$ is a smooth mollification of the planar Gaussian free field. Previous work by Ding-Dubédat-Dunlap-Falconet and Gwynne-Miller has shown that there is a critical value $ξ_{\mathrm{crit}} > 0$ such that for $ξ< ξ_{\mathrm{crit}}$, LFPP converges under appropriate re-scaling to a random metric on the plane which induces the same topology as the Euclidean metric (the so-called $γ$-\emph{Liouville quantum gravity metric} for $γ= γ(ξ)\in (0,2)$). We show that for all $ξ> 0$, the LFPP metrics are tight with respect to the topology on lower semicontinuous functions. For $ξ> ξ_{\mathrm{crit}}$, every possible subsequential limit $D_h$ is a metric on the plane which does \emph{not} induce the Euclidean topology: rather, there is an uncountable, dense, Lebesgue measure-zero set of points $z\in\mathbb C $ such that $D_h(z,w) = \infty$ for every $w\in\mathbb C\setminus \{z\}$. We expect that these subsequential limiting metrics are related to Liouville quantum gravity with matter central charge in $(1,25)$.

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arXiv2021

Random surfaces and Liouville quantum gravity

Liouville quantum gravity (LQG) surfaces are a family of random fractal surfaces which can be thought of as the canonical models of random two-dimensional Riemannian manifolds, in the same sense that Brownian motion is the canonical model of a random path. LQG surfaces are the continuum limits of discrete random surfaces called random planar maps. In this expository article, we discuss the definition of random planar maps and LQG, the sense in which random planar maps converge to LQG, and the motivations for studying these objects. We also mention several open problems. We do not assume any background knowledge beyond that of a second-year mathematics graduate student.

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arXiv2021

External diffusion limited aggregation on a spanning-tree-weighted random planar map

Let $M$ be the infinite spanning-tree-weighted random planar map, which is the local limit of finite random planar maps sampled with probability proportional to the number of spanning trees they admit. We show that a.s. the $M$-graph-distance diameter of the external diffusion-limited aggregation (DLA) cluster on $M$ run for $m$ steps is of order $m^{2/d + o_m(1)}$, where $d$ is the metric ball volume growth exponent for $M$ (which was shown to exist by Ding-Gwynne, 2018). By known bounds for $d$, one has $0.55051\ldots \leq 2/d \leq 0.563315\ldots$. Along the way, we also prove that loop-erased random walk (LERW) on $M$ typically travels graph distance $m^{2/d + o_m(1)}$ in $m$ units of time and that the graph-distance diameter of a finite spanning-tree-weighted random planar map with $n$ edges, with or without boundary, is of order $n^{1/d+o_n(1)}$ except on an event with probability decaying faster than any negative power of $n$. Our proofs are based on a special relationship between DLA and LERW on spanning-tree-weighted random planar maps as well as estimates for distances in such maps which come from the theory of Liouville quantum gravity.

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arXiv2021

The Tutte embedding of the mated-CRT map converges to Liouville quantum gravity

We prove that the Tutte embeddings (a.k.a. harmonic/barycentric embeddings) of certain random planar maps converge to $γ$-Liouville quantum gravity ($γ$-LQG). Specifically, we treat mated-CRT maps, which are discretized matings of correlated continuum random trees, and $γ$ ranges from $0$ to $2$ as one varies the correlation parameter. We also show that the associated space-filling path on the embedded map converges to space-filling SLE$_κ$ for $κ=16/γ^2$ (in the annealed sense) and that simple random walk on the embedded map converges to Brownian motion (in the quenched sense). This work constitutes the first proof that a discrete conformal embedding of a random planar map converges to LQG. Many more such statements have been conjectured. Since the mated-CRT map can be viewed as a coarse-grained approximation to other random planar maps (the UIPT, tree-weighted maps, bipolar-oriented maps, etc.), our results indicate a potential approach for proving that embeddings of these maps converge to LQG as well. To prove the main result, we establish several (independently interesting) theorems about LQG surfaces decorated by space-filling SLE. There is a natural way to use the SLE curve to divide the plane into "cells" corresponding to vertices of the mated-CRT map. We study the law of the shape of the origin-containing cell, in particular proving moments for the ratio of its squared diameter to its area. We also give bounds on the degree of the origin-containing cell and establish a form of ergodicity for the entire configuration. Ultimately, we use these properties to show (with the help of a general theorem proved in a separate paper) that random walk on these cells converges to a time change of Brownian motion, which in turn leads to the Tutte embedding result.

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arXiv2021

Characterizations of SLE$_κ$ for $κ\in (4,8)$ on Liouville quantum gravity

We prove that SLE$_κ$ for $κ\in (4,8)$ on an independent $γ=4/\sqrtκ$-Liouville quantum gravity (LQG) surface is uniquely characterized by the form of its LQG boundary length process and the form of the conditional law of the unexplored quantum surface given the explored curve-decorated quantum surface up to each time $t$. We prove variants of this characterization for both whole-plane space-filling SLE$_κ$ on an infinite-volume LQG surface and for chordal SLE$_κ$ on a finite-volume LQG surface with boundary. Using the equivalence of Brownian and $\sqrt{8/3}$-LQG surfaces, we deduce that SLE$_6$ on the Brownian disk is uniquely characterized by the form of its boundary length process and that the complementary connected components of the curve up to each time $t$ are themselves conditionally independent Brownian disks given this boundary length process. The results of this paper are used in another paper by the same authors to show that the scaling limit of percolation on random quadrangulations is given by SLE$_6$ on $\sqrt{8/3}$-LQG with respect to the Gromov-Hausdorff-Prokhorov-uniform topology, the natural analog of the Gromov-Hausdorff topology for curve-decorated metric measure spaces.

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arXiv2021

Convergence of percolation on uniform quadrangulations with boundary to SLE$_{6}$ on $\sqrt{8/3}$-Liouville quantum gravity

Let $Q$ be a free Boltzmann quadrangulation with simple boundary decorated by a critical ($p=3/4$) face percolation configuration. We prove that the chordal percolation exploration path on $Q$ between two marked boundary edges converges in the scaling limit to chordal SLE$_6$ on an independent $\sqrt{8/3}$-Liouville quantum gravity disk (equivalently, a Brownian disk). The topology of convergence is the Gromov-Hausdorff-Prokhorov-uniform topology, the natural analog of the Gromov-Hausdorff topology for curve-decorated metric measure spaces. We also obtain analogous scaling limit results for face percolation on the uniform infinite half-plane quadrangulation with simple boundary, and for site percolation on a uniform triangulation with simple boundary. Our method of proof is robust and, up to certain technical steps, extends to any percolation model on a random planar map which can be explored via peeling.

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arXiv2020

Conformal covariance of the Liouville quantum gravity metric for $γ\in (0,2)$

For $γ\in (0,2)$, $U\subset \mathbb C$, and an instance $h$ of the Gaussian free field (GFF) on $U$, the $γ$-Liouville quantum gravity (LQG) surface associated with $(U,h)$ is formally described by the Riemannian metric tensor $e^{γh} (dx^2 + dy^2)$ on $U$. Previous work by the authors showed that one can define a canonical metric (distance function) $D_h$ on $U$ associated with a $γ$-LQG surface. We show that this metric is conformally covariant in the sense that it respects the coordinate change formula for $γ$-LQG surfaces. That is, if $U,\widetilde{U}$ are domains, $ϕ\colon U \to \widetilde{U}$ is a conformal transformation, $Q=2/γ+γ/2$, and $\widetilde h = h\circϕ^{-1} + Q\log|(ϕ^{-1})'|$, then $D_h(z,w) = D_{\widetilde{h}}(ϕ(z),ϕ(w))$ for all $z,w \in U$. This proves that $D_h$ is intrinsic to the quantum surface structure of $(U,h)$, i.e., it does not depend on the particular choice of parameterization.

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arXiv2020

Random walk on random planar maps: spectral dimension, resistance, and displacement

We study simple random walk on the class of random planar maps which can be encoded by a two-dimensional random walk with i.i.d. increments or a two-dimensional Brownian motion via a "mating-of-trees" type bijection. This class includes the uniform infinite planar triangulation (UIPT), the infinite-volume limits of random planar maps weighted by the number of spanning trees, bipolar orientations, or Schnyder woods they admit, and the $γ$-mated-CRT map for $γ\in (0,2)$. For each of these maps, we obtain an upper bound for the Green's function on the diagonal, an upper bound for the effective resistance to the boundary of a metric ball, an upper bound for the return probability of the random walk to its starting point after $n$ steps, and a lower bound for the graph-distance displacement of the random walk, all of which are sharp up to polylogarithmic factors. When combined with work of Lee (2017), our bound for the return probability shows that the spectral dimension of each of these random planar maps is a.s. equal to 2, i.e., the (quenched) probability that the simple random walk returns to its starting point after $2n$ steps is $n^{-1+o_n(1)}$. Our results also show that the amount of time that it takes a random walk to exit a metric ball is at least its volume (up to a polylogarithmic factor). In the special case of the UIPT, this implies that random walk typically travels at least $n^{1/4 - o_n(1)}$ units of graph distance in $n$ units of time. The matching upper bound for the displacement is proven by Gwynne and Hutchcroft (2018). These two works together resolve a conjecture of Benjamini and Curien (2013) in the UIPT case. Our proofs are based on estimates for the mated-CRT map (which come from its relationship to SLE-decorated Liouville quantum gravity) and a strong coupling of the mated-CRT map with the other random planar map models.

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arXiv2020

Existence and uniqueness of the Liouville quantum gravity metric for $γ\in (0,2)$

We show that for each $γ\in (0,2)$, there is a unique metric (i.e., distance function) associated with $γ$-Liouville quantum gravity (LQG). More precisely, we show that for the whole-plane Gaussian free field (GFF) $h$, there is a unique random metric $D_h$ associated with the Riemannian metric tensor "$e^{γh} (dx^2 + dy^2)$" on $\mathbb C$ which is characterized by a certain list of axioms: it is locally determined by $h$ and it transforms appropriately when either adding a continuous function to $h$ or applying a conformal automorphism of $\mathbb C$ (i.e., a complex affine transformation). Metrics associated with other variants of the GFF can be constructed using local absolute continuity. The $γ$-LQG metric can be constructed explicitly as the scaling limit of Liouville first passage percolation (LFPP), the random metric obtained by exponentiating a mollified version of the GFF. Earlier work by Ding, Dubédat, Dunlap, and Falconet (2019) showed that LFPP admits non-trivial subsequential limits. This paper shows that the subsequential limit is unique and satisfies our list of axioms. In the case when $γ= \sqrt{8/3}$, our metric coincides with the $\sqrt{8/3}$-LQG metric constructed in previous work by Miller and Sheffield, which in turn is equivalent to the Brownian map for a certain variant of the GFF. For general $γ\in (0,2)$, we conjecture that our metric is the Gromov-Hausdorff limit of appropriate weighted random planar map models, equipped with their graph distance. We include a substantial list of open problems.

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arXiv2020

Anomalous diffusion of random walk on random planar maps

We prove that the simple random walk on the uniform infinite planar triangulation (UIPT) typically travels graph distance at most $n^{1/4 + o_n(1)}$ in $n$ units of time. Together with the complementary lower bound proven by Gwynne and Miller (2017) this shows that the typical graph distance displacement of the walk after $n$ steps is $n^{1/4 + o_n(1)}$, as conjectured by Benjamini and Curien (2013). More generally, we show that the simple random walks on a certain family of random planar maps in the $γ$-Liouville quantum gravity (LQG) universality class for $γ\in (0,2)$---including spanning tree-weighted maps, bipolar-oriented maps, and mated-CRT maps---typically travels graph distance $n^{1/d_γ+ o_n(1)}$ in $n$ units of time, where $d_γ$ is the growth exponent for the volume of a metric ball on the map, which was shown to exist and depend only on $γ$ by Ding and Gwynne (2018). Since $d_γ> 2$, this shows that the simple random walk on each of these maps is subdiffusive. Our proofs are based on an embedding of the random planar maps under consideration into $\mathbb C$ wherein graph distance balls can be compared to Euclidean balls modulo subpolynomial errors. This embedding arises from a coupling of the given random planar map with a mated-CRT map together with the relationship of the latter map to SLE-decorated LQG.

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arXiv2020

Weak LQG metrics and Liouville first passage percolation

For $γ\in (0,2)$, we define a weak $γ$-Liouville quantum gravity (LQG) metric to be a function $h\mapsto D_h$ which takes in an instance of the planar Gaussian free field (GFF) and outputs a metric on the plane satisfying a certain list of natural axioms. We show that these axioms are satisfied for any subsequential limits of Liouville first passage percolation. Such subsequential limits were proven to exist by Ding-Dubédat-Dunlap-Falconet (2019). It is also known that these axioms are satisfied for the $\sqrt{8/3}$-LQG metric constructed by Miller and Sheffield (2013-2016). For any weak $γ$-LQG metric, we obtain moment bounds for diameters of sets as well as point-to-point, set-to-set, and point-to-set distances. We also show that any such metric is locally bi-Hölder continuous with respect to the Euclidean metric and compute the optimal Hölder exponents in both directions. Finally, we show that LQG geodesics cannot spend a long time near a straight line or the boundary of a metric ball. These results are used in subsequent work by Gwynne and Miller which proves that the weak $γ$-LQG metric is unique for each $γ\in (0,2)$, which in turn gives the uniqueness of the subsequential limit of Liouville first passage percolation. However, most of our results are new even in the special case when $γ=\sqrt{8/3}$.

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arXiv2020

Liouville quantum gravity surfaces with boundary as matings of trees

For $γ\in (0,2)$, the quantum disk and $γ$-quantum wedge are two of the most natural types of Liouville quantum gravity (LQG) surfaces with boundary. These surfaces arise as scaling limits of finite and infinite random planar maps with boundary, respectively. We show that the left/right quantum boundary length process of a space-filling SLE$_{16/γ^2}$ curve on a quantum disk or on a $γ$-quantum wedge is a certain explicit conditioned two-dimensional Brownian motion with correlation $-\cos(πγ^2/4)$. This extends the mating of trees theorem of Duplantier, Miller, and Sheffield (2014) to the case of quantum surfaces with boundary (the disk case for $γ\in (\sqrt 2 , 2)$ was previously treated by Duplantier, Miller, Sheffield using different methods). As an application, we give an explicit formula for the conditional law of the LQG area of a quantum disk given its boundary length by computing the law of the corresponding functional of the correlated Brownian motion.

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arXiv2020

A mating-of-trees approach for graph distances in random planar maps

We introduce a general technique for proving estimates for certain random planar maps which belong to the $γ$-Liouville quantum gravity (LQG) universality class for $γ\in (0,2)$. The family of random planar maps we consider are those which can be encoded by a two-dimensional random walk with i.i.d.\ increments via a mating-of-trees bijection, and includes the uniform infinite planar triangulation (UIPT; $γ=\sqrt{8/3}$); and planar maps weighted by the number of different spanning trees ($γ=\sqrt 2$), bipolar orientations ($γ=\sqrt{4/3}$), or Schnyder woods ($γ=1$) that can be put on the map. Using our technique, we prove estimates for graph distances in the above family of random planar maps. In particular, we obtain non-trivial upper and lower bounds for the cardinality of a graph distance ball consistent with the Watabiki (1993) prediction for the Hausdorff dimension of $γ$-LQG and we establish the existence of an exponent for certain distances in the map. The basic idea of our approach is to compare a given random planar map $M$ to a mated-CRT map---a random planar map constructed from a correlated two-dimensional Brownian motion---using a strong coupling (Zaitsev, 1998) of the encoding walk for $M$ and the Brownian motion used to construct the mated-CRT map. This allows us to deduce estimates for graph distances in $M$ from the estimates for graph distances in the mated-CRT map which we proved (using continuum theory) in a previous work. In the special case when $γ=\sqrt{8/3}$, we instead deduce estimates for the $\sqrt{8/3}$-mated-CRT map from known results for the UIPT. The arguments of this paper do not directly use SLE/LQG, and can be read without any knowledge of these objects.

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arXiv2020

The dimension of the boundary of a Liouville quantum gravity metric ball

Let $γ\in (0,2)$, let $h$ be the planar Gaussian free field, and consider the $γ$-Liouville quantum gravity (LQG) metric associated with $h$. We show that the essential supremum of the Hausdorff dimension of the boundary of a $γ$-LQG metric ball with respect to the Euclidean (resp. $γ$-LQG) metric is $2 - \fracγ{d_γ}\left(\frac{2}γ + \fracγ{2} \right) + \frac{γ^2}{2d_γ^2}$ (resp. $d_γ-1$), where $d_γ$ is the Hausdorff dimension of the whole plane with respect to the $γ$-LQG metric. For $γ= \sqrt{8/3}$, in which case $d_{\sqrt{8/3}}=4$, we get that the essential supremum of Euclidean (resp. $\sqrt{8/3}$-LQG) dimension of a $\sqrt{8/3}$-LQG ball boundary is $5/4$ (resp. $3$). We also compute the essential suprema of the Euclidean and $γ$-LQG Hausdorff dimensions of the intersection of a $γ$-LQG ball boundary with the set of metric $α$-thick points of the field $h$ for each $α\in \mathbb R$. Our results show that the set of $γ/d_γ$-thick points on the ball boundary has full Euclidean dimension and the set of $γ$-thick points on the ball boundary has full $γ$-LQG dimension.

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arXiv2020

Local metrics of the Gaussian free field

We introduce the concept of a local metric of the Gaussian free field (GFF) $h$, which is a random metric coupled with $h$ in such a way that it depends locally on $h$ in a certain sense. This definition is a metric analog of the concept of a local set for $h$. We establish general criteria for two local metrics of the same GFF $h$ to be bi-Lipschitz equivalent to each other and for a local metric to be a.s. determined by $h$. Our results are used in subsequent works which prove the existence, uniqueness, and basic properties of the $γ$-Liouville quantum gravity (LQG) metric for all $γ\in (0,2)$, but no knowledge of LQG is needed to understand this paper.

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