arXiv subjects

Nina Gantert

Publications and source records attributed to Nina Gantert.

65 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

arXiv2010

Asymptotics for the survival probability in a killed branching random walk

Consider a discrete-time one-dimensional supercritical branching random walk. We study the probability that there exists an infinite ray in the branching random walk that always lies above the line of slope $γ-ε$, where $γ$ denotes the asymptotic speed of the right-most position in the branching random walk. Under mild general assumptions upon the distribution of the branching random walk, we prove that when $ε\to 0$, the probability in question decays like $\exp\{- {β+ o(1)\over ε^{1/2}}\}$, where $β$ is a positive constant depending on the distribution of the branching random walk. In the special case of i.i.d. Bernoulli$(p)$ random variables (with $0<p<{1\over 2}$) assigned on a rooted binary tree, this answers an open question of Robin Pemantle.

math.PR↗

arXiv2009

Survival and Growth of a Branching Random Walk in Random Environment

We consider a particular Branching Random Walk in Random Environment (BRWRE) on $\sN_0$ started with one particle at the origin. Particles reproduce according to an offspring distribution (which depends on the location) and move either one step to the right (with a probability in $(0,1]$ which also depends on the location) or stay in the same place. We give criteria for local and global survival and show that global survival is equivalent to exponential growth of the moments. Further, on the event of survival the number of particles grows almost surely exponentially fast with the same growth rate as the moments.

math.PR↗

arXiv2009

Survival of branching random walks in random environment

We study survival of nearest-neighbour branching random walks in random environment (BRWRE) on ${\mathbb Z}$. A priori there are three different regimes of survival: global survival, local survival, and strong local survival. We show that local and strong local survival regimes coincide for BRWRE and that they can be characterized with the spectral radius of the first moment matrix of the process. These results are generalizations of the classification of BRWRE in recurrent and transient regimes. Our main result is a characterization of global survival that is given in terms of Lyapunov exponents of an infinite product of i.i.d. $2\times 2$ random matrices.

math.PR↗

arXiv2009

The infinite valley for a recurrent random walk in random environment

We consider a one-dimensional recurrent random walk in random environment (RWRE). We show that the - suitably centered - empirical distributions of the RWRE converge weakly to a certain limit law which describes the stationary distribution of a random walk in an infinite valley. The construction of the infinite valley goes back to Golosov. As a consequence, we show weak convergence for both the maximal local time and the self-intersection local time of the RWRE and also determine the exact constant in the almost sure upper limit of the maximal local time.

math.PR↗

arXiv2009

Survival time of random walk in random environment among soft obstacles

We consider a Random Walk in Random Environment (RWRE) moving in an i.i.d.\ random field of obstacles. When the particle hits an obstacle, it disappears with a positive probability. We obtain quenched and annealed bounds on the tails of the survival time in the general $d$-dimensional case. We then consider a simplified one-dimensional model (where transition probabilities and obstacles are independent and the RWRE only moves to neighbour sites), and obtain finer results for the tail of the survival time. In addition, we study also the "mixed" probability measures (quenched with respect to the obstacles and annealed with respect to the transition probabilities and vice-versa) and give results for tails of the survival time with respect to these probability measures. Further, we apply the same methods to obtain bounds for the tails of hitting times of Branching Random Walks in Random Environment (BRWRE).

math.PR↗

arXiv2009

On slowdown and speedup of transient random walks in random environment

We consider one-dimensional random walks in random environment which are transient to the right. Our main interest is in the study of the sub-ballistic regime, where at time $n$ the particle is typically at a distance of order $O(n^κ)$ from the origin, $κ\in(0,1)$. We investigate the probabilities of moderate deviations from this behaviour. Specifically, we are interested in quenched and annealed probabilities of slowdown (at time $n$, the particle is at a distance of order $O(n^{ν_0})$ from the origin, $ν_0\in (0,κ)$), and speedup (at time $n$, the particle is at a distance of order $n^{ν_1}$ from the origin, $ν_1\in (κ,1)$), for the current location of the particle and for the hitting times. Also, we study probabilities of backtracking: at time $n$, the particle is located around $(-n^ν)$, thus making an unusual excursion to the left. For the slowdown, our results are valid in the ballistic case as well.

math.PR↗

arXiv2006

Valleys and the maximum local time for random walk in random environment

Let $ξ(n, x)$ be the local time at $x$ for a recurrent one-dimensional random walk in random environment after $n$ steps, and consider the maximum $ξ^*(n) = \max_x ξ(n,x)$. It is known that $\limsup ξ^*(n)/n$ is a positive constant a.s. We prove that $\liminf_n (\log\log\log n)ξ^*(n)/n$ is a positive constant a.s.; this answers a question of P. Révész (1990). The proof is based on an analysis of the {\em valleys /} in the environment, defined as the potential wells of record depth. In particular, we show that almost surely, at any time $n$ large enough, the random walker has spent almost all of its lifetime in the two deepest valleys of the environment it has encountered. We also prove a uniform exponential tail bound for the ratio of the expected total occupation time of a valley and the expected local time at its bottom.

math.PR↗

arXiv2005

Annealed deviations of random walk in random scenery

Let $(Z_n)_{n\in\N}$ be a $d$-dimensional {\it random walk in random scenery}, i.e., $Z_n=\sum_{k=0}^{n-1}Y(S_k)$ with $(S_k)_{k\in\N_0}$ a random walk in $\Z^d$ and $(Y(z))_{z\in\Z^d}$ an i.i.d. scenery, independent of the walk. The walker's steps have mean zero and finite variance. We identify the speed and the rate of the logarithmic decay of $¶(\frac 1n Z_n>b_n)$ for various choices of sequences $(b_n)_n$ in $[1,\infty)$. Depending on $(b_n)_n$ and the upper tails of the scenery, we identify different regimes for the speed of decay and different variational formulas for the rate functions. In contrast to recent work \cite{AC02} by A. Asselah and F. Castell, we consider sceneries {\it unbounded} to infinity. It turns out that there are interesting connections to large deviation properties of self-intersections of the walk, which have been studied recently by X. Chen \cite{C03}.

math.PR↗

arXiv2005

The critical Branching Markov Chain is transient

We investigate recurrence and transience of Branching Markov Chains (BMC) in discrete time. Branching Markov Chains are clouds of particles which move (according to an irreducible underlying Markov Chain) and produce offspring independently. The offspring distribution can depend on the location of the particle. If the offspring distribution is constant for all locations, these are Tree-Indexed Markov chains in the sense of \cite{benjamini94}. Starting with one particle at location $x$, we denote by $α(x)$ the probability that $x$ is visited infinitely often by the cloud. Due to the irreducibility of the underlying Markov Chain, there are three regimes: either $α(x) = 0$ for all $x$ (transient regime), or $0 < α(x) < 1$ for all $x$ (weakly recurrent regime) or $α(x) = 1$ for all $x$ (strongly recurrent regime). We give classification results, including a sufficient condition for transience in the general case. If the mean of the offspring distribution is constant, we give a criterion for transience involving the spectral radius of the underlying Markov Chain and the mean of the offspring distribution.

math.PR↗

arXiv2005

Deviations of a random walk in a random scenery with stretched exponential tails

Let (Z_n)_{n\in\N_0} be a d-dimensional random walk in random scenery, i.e., Z_n=\sum_{k=0}^{n-1}Y_{S_k} with (S_k)_{k\in\N_0} a random walk in Z^d and (Y_z)_{z\in Z^d} an i.i.d. scenery, independent of the walk. We assume that the random variables Y_z have a stretched exponential tail. In particular, they do not possess exponential moments. We identify the speed and the rate of the logarithmic decay of Pr(Z_n>t_n n) for all sequences (t_n)_{n\in\N} satisfying a certain lower bound. This complements previous results, where it was assumed that Y_z has exponential moments of all orders. In contrast to the previous situation,the event \{Z_n>t_nn\} is not realized by a homogeneous behavior of the walk's local times and the scenery, but by many visits of the walker to a particular site and a large value of the scenery at that site. This reflects a well-known extreme behavior typical for random variables having no exponential moments.

math.PR↗

arXiv2003

The speed of biased random walk on percolation clusters

We consider biased random walk on supercritical percolation clusters in $\Z^2$. We show that the random walk is transient and that there are two speed regimes: If the bias is large enough, the random walk has speed zero, while if the bias is small enough, the speed of the random walk is positive.

math.PR↗