arXiv subjects

Rongfeng Sun

Publications and source records attributed to Rongfeng Sun.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

From disordered systems to the Critical 2D Stochastic Heat Flow

We review our joint work on the scaling limits of disordered systems, linking the notion of disorder relevance/irrelevance to that of sub/super-criticality of singular SPDEs. This line of research culminated in the construction of the Critical 2D Stochastic Heat Flow (SHF), a universal process which provides a non-trivial solution to the Stochastic Heat Equation in dimension 2, a critical singular SPDE that lies beyond the reach of existing solution theories. The SHF also offers a rare example of a non-Gaussian scaling limit for a disordered system at its phase transition point in the critical dimension.

math.PR↗

arXiv2025

Singularity and regularity of the critical 2D Stochastic Heat Flow

The Critical 2D Stochastic Heat Flow (SHF) provides a natural candidate solution to the ill-posed 2D Stochastic Heat Equation with multiplicative space-time white noise. In this paper, we initiate the investigation of the spatial properties of the SHF. We prove that, as a random measure on $\mathbb{R}^2$, it is a.s. singular w.r.t. the Lebesgue measure. This is obtained by probing a "quasi-critical" regime and showing the asymptotic log-normality of the mass assigned to vanishing balls, as the disorder strength is sent to zero at a suitable rate, accompanied by similar results for critical 2D directed polymers. We also describe the regularity of the SHF, showing that it is a.s. H\"older $C^{-\epsilon}$ for any $\epsilon>0$, implying the absence of atoms, and we establish local convergence to zero in the long time limit.

math.PR↗

arXiv2024

The Critical 2d Stochastic Heat Flow and Related Models

In these lecture notes, we review recent progress in the study of the stochastic heat equation and its discrete analogue, the directed polymer model, in spatial dimension 2. It was discovered that a phase transition emerges on an intermediate disorder scale, with Edwards-Wilkinson (Gaussian) fluctuations in the sub-critical regime. In the critical window, a unique scaling limit has been identified and named the critical 2d stochastic heat flow. This gives a meaning to the solution of the stochastic heat equation in the critical dimension 2, which lies beyond existing solution theories for singular SPDEs. We outline the proof ideas, introduce the key ingredients, and discuss related literature on disordered systems and singular SPDEs. A list of open questions is also provided.

math.PR↗

arXiv2024

Random spanning trees in random environment

We introduce a new spanning tree model called the random spanning tree in random environment (RSTRE), which interpolates between the uniform spanning tree and the minimum spanning tree as the inverse temperature (disorder strength) $\beta$ varies. On the complete graph with $n$ vertices and i.i.d.\ uniform disorder variables on the edges, we identify: (1) a low disorder regime with $\beta \leq C n/\log n$, where the diameter of the random spanning tree is typically of order $n^{1/2}$, the same as for the uniform spanning tree; (2) a high disorder regime with $\beta \geq n^{4/3} \log n$, where the diameter is typically of order $n^{1/3}$, the same as for the minimum spanning tree. We conjecture that for $\beta=n^{\alpha}$ with $\alpha \in (1, 4/3)$, the diameter is of order $n^{\gamma+o(1)}$ for some $\gamma=\gamma(\alpha)$ strictly between $1/2$ and $1/3$.

math.PR↗

arXiv2024

Scaling Limits of Disorder Relevant Non-Binary Spin Systems

In [7], Caravenna, Sun and Zygouras gave general criteria for the partition functions of binary valued spin systems with a relevant random field perturbation to have non-trivial continuum and weak disorder limits. In this work, we show how these criteria can be extended to non-binary valued spin systems.

math.PR↗

arXiv2024

An Invariance Principle for a Random Walk Among Moving Traps via Thermodynamic Formalism

We consider a random walk among a Poisson cloud of moving traps on ${\mathbb Z}^d$, where the walk is killed at a rate proportional to the number of traps occupying the same position. In dimension $d=1$, we have previously shown that under the annealed law of the random walk conditioned on survival up to time $t$, the walk is sub-diffusive. Here we show that in $d\geq 6$ and under diffusive scaling, this annealed law satisfies an invariance principle with a positive diffusion constant if the killing rate is small. Our proof is based on the theory of thermodynamic formalism, where we extend some classic results for Markov shifts with a finite alphabet and a potential of summable variation to the case of an uncountable non-compact alphabet.

math.PR↗

arXiv2024

Universality of the Brownian net

The Brownian web is a collection of one-dimensional coalescing Brownian motions starting from every point in space and time, while the Brownian net is an extension that also allows branching. We show here that the Brownian net is the universal scaling limit of one-dimensional branching-coalescing random walks with weak binary branching and arbitrary increment distributions that have finite $(3+\varepsilon)$-th moment. This gives the first example in the domain of attraction of the Brownian net where paths can cross without coalescing.

math.PR↗

arXiv2023

Diameter of uniform spanning trees on random weighted graphs

For any edge weight distribution, we consider the uniform spanning tree (UST) on finite graphs with i.i.d. random edge weights. We show that, for bounded degree expander graphs and finite boxes of ${\mathbb Z}^d$, the diameter of the UST is of order $n^{1/2+o(1)}$ with high probability, where $n$ is the number of vertices.

math.PR↗

arXiv2023

The Critical 2d Stochastic Heat Flow

We consider directed polymers in random environment in the critical dimension $d = 2$, focusing on the intermediate disorder regime when the model undergoes a phase transition. We prove that, at criticality, the diffusively rescaled random field of partition functions has a unique scaling limit: a universal process of random measures on $\mathbb{R}^2$ with logarithmic correlations, which we call the *Critical 2d Stochastic Heat Flow*. It is the natural candidate for the long sought solution of the critical 2d Stochastic Heat Equation with multiplicative space-time white noise.

math.PR↗

arXiv2022

The critical 2d Stochastic Heat Flow is not a Gaussian Multiplicative Chaos

The critical $2d$ Stochastic Heat Flow (SHF) is a stochastic process of random measures on ${\mathbb R}^2$, recently constructed in [CSZ23]. We show that this process falls outside the class of Gaussian Multiplicative Chaos (GMC), in the sense that it cannot be realised as the exponential of a (generalised) Gaussian field. We achieve this by deriving strict lower bounds on the moments of the SHF that are of independent interest.

math.PR↗

arXiv2022

A New Correlation Inequality for Ising Models with External Fields

We study ferromagnetic Ising models on finite graphs with an inhomogeneous external field, where a subset of vertices is designated as the boundary. We show that the influence of boundary conditions on any given spin is maximised when the external field is identically $0$. One corollary is that spin-spin correlations are maximised when the external field vanishes and the boundary condition is free, which proves a conjecture of Shlosman. In particular, the random field Ising model on ${\mathbb Z}^d$, $d\geq 3$, exhibits exponential decay of correlations in the entire high temperature regime of the pure Ising model. Another corollary is that the pure Ising model in $d\geq 3$ satisfies the conjectured strong spatial mixing property in the entire high temperature regime.

math.PR↗

arXiv2021

The two-dimensional continuum random field Ising model

In this paper we construct the two-dimensional continuum random field Ising model via scaling limits of a random field perturbation of the critical two-dimensional Ising model with diminishing disorder strength. Furthermore, we show that almost surely with respect to the continuum random field given by a white noise, the law of the magnetisation field is singular with respect to that of the two-dimensional continuum pure Ising model constructed by Camia, Garban and Newman.

math.PR↗

arXiv2021

Scaling limit of a directed polymer among a Poisson field of independent walks

We consider a directed polymer model in dimension $1+1$, where the disorder is given by the occupation field of a Poisson system of independent random walks on $\mathbb Z$. In a suitable continuum and weak disorder limit, we show that the family of quenched partition functions of the directed polymer converges to the Stratonovich solution of a multiplicative stochastic heat equation (SHE) with a Gaussian noise, whose space-time covariance is given by the heat kernel. In contrast to the case with space-time white noise where the solution of the SHE admits a Wiener-Itô chaos expansion, we establish an $L^1$-convergent chaos expansions of iterated integrals generated by Picard iterations. Using this expansion and its discrete counterpart for the polymer partition functions, the convergence of the terms in the expansion is proved via functional analytic arguments and heat kernel estimates. The Poisson random walk system is amenable to careful moment analysis, which is an important input to our arguments.

math.PR↗

arXiv2020

An invariance principle for biased voter model interfaces

We consider one-dimensional biased voter models, where 1's replace 0's at a faster rate than the other way round, started in a Heaviside initial state describing the interface between two infinite populations of 0's and 1's. In the limit of weak bias, for a diffusively rescaled process, we consider a measure-valued process describing the local fraction of type 1 sites as a function of time. Under a finite second moment condition on the rates, we show that in the diffusive scaling limit there is a drifted Brownian path with the property that all but a vanishingly small fraction of the sites on the left (resp. right) of this path are of type 0 (resp. 1). This extends known results for unbiased voter models. Our proofs depend crucially on recent results about interface tightness for biased voter models.

math.PR↗

arXiv2020

Distribution of the random walk conditioned on survival among quenched Bernoulli obstacles

Place an obstacle with probability $1-p$ independently at each vertex of $\mathbb Z^d$ and consider a simple symmetric random walk that is killed upon hitting one of the obstacles. For $d \geq 2$ and $p$ strictly above the critical threshold for site percolation, we condition on the environment such that the origin is contained in an infinite connected component free of obstacles. It has previously been shown that with high probability, the random walk conditioned on survival up to time $n$ will be localized in a ball of volume asymptotically $d\log_{1/p}n$. In this work, we prove that this ball is free of obstacles, and we derive the limiting one-time distributions of the random walk conditioned on survival. Our proof is based on obstacle modifications and estimates on how such modifications affect the probability of the obstacle configurations as well as their associated Dirichlet eigenvalues, which is of independent interest.

math.PR↗

arXiv2019

Biased random walk conditioned on survival among Bernoulli obstacles: subcritical phase

We consider a discrete time biased random walk conditioned to avoid Bernoulli obstacles on ${\mathbb Z}^d$ ($d\geq 2$) up to time $N$. This model is known to undergo a phase transition: for a large bias, the walk is ballistic whereas for a small bias, it is sub-ballistic. We prove that in the sub-ballistic phase, the random walk is contained in a ball of radius $O(N^{1/(d+2)})$, which is the same scale as for the unbiased case. As an intermediate step, we also prove large deviation principles for the endpoint distribution for the unbiased random walk at scales between $N^{1/(d+2)}$ and $o(N^{d/(d+2)})$. These results improve and complement earlier work by Sznitman [Ann. Sci. Ecole Norm. Sup. (4), 28(3):345--370, 371--390, 1995].

math.PR↗

arXiv2019

Random Walk Among Mobile/Immobile Traps: A Short Review

There have been extensive studies of a random walk among a field of immobile traps (or obstacles), where one is interested in the probability of survival as well as the law of the random walk conditioned on its survival up to time $t$. In contrast, very little is known when the traps are mobile. We will briefly review the literature on the trapping problem with immobile traps, and then review some recent results on a model with mobile traps, where the traps are represented by a Poisson system of independent random walks on ${\mathbb Z}^d$. Some open questions will be given at the end.

math.PR↗

arXiv2019

Perturbations of supercritical oriented percolation and sticky Brownian webs

Previously, Sarkar and Sun have shown that for supercritical oriented percolation in dimension $1+1$, the set of rightmost infinite open paths converges to the Brownian web after proper centering and scaling. In this note, we show that a pair of sticky Brownian webs arise naturally if one considers the set of right-most infinite open paths for two coupled percolation configurations with distinct (but close) percolation parameters. This leads to a natural conjecture on the convergence of the dynamical supercritical oriented percolation model to the so-called dynamical Brownian web.

math.PR↗