arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Lucas Gerin.
On the supercritical percolation cluster with parameter p, the distances between two distant points of the axis are asymptotically increased by a factor 1+(1-p)/2+o(1-p) with respect to the usual distance. The proof is based on an apparently new connection with the TASEP (totally asymmetric simple exclusion process).
F.Giroire has recently proposed an algorithm which returns the approximate number of distincts elements in a large sequence of words, under strong constraints coming from the analysis of large data bases. His estimation is based on statistical properties of uniform random variables in $[0,1]$. In this note we propose an optimal estimation, using Kullback information and estimation theory.
For First Passage Percolation in Z^d with large d, we construct a path connecting the origin to {x_1 =1}, whose passage time has optimal order \log d/d. Besides, an improved lower bound for the "diagonal" speed of the cluster combined with a result by Dhar (1988) shows that the limiting shape in FPP with exponential passage times (and thus that of Eden model) is not the euclidian ball in dimension larger than 35.
We discuss a Monte Carlo Markov Chain (MCMC) procedure for the random sampling of some one-dimensional lattice paths with constraints, for various constraints. We show that an approach inspired by optimal transport allows us to bound efficiently the mixing time of the associated Markov chain. The algorithm is robust and easy to implement, and samples an "almost" uniform path of length $n$ in $n^{3+\eps}$ steps. This bound makes use of a certain contraction property of the Markov chain, and is also used to derive a bound for the running time of Propp-Wilson's CFTP algorithm.
Population protocols have been introduced as a model of sensor networks consisting of very limited mobile agents with no control over their own movement. A population protocol corresponds to a collection of anonymous agents, modeled by finite automata, that interact with one another to carry out computations, by updating their states, using some rules. Their computational power has been investigated under several hypotheses but always when restricted to finite size populations. In particular, predicates stably computable in the original model have been characterized as those definable in Presburger arithmetic. We study mathematically the convergence of population protocols when the size of the population goes to infinity. We do so by giving general results, that we illustrate through the example of a particular population protocol for which we even obtain an asymptotic development. This example shows in particular that these protocols seem to have a rather different computational power when a huge population hypothesis is considered.