Self-attractive random walks: the case of critical drifts (Q443875)

Self-attractive random walks (polymers) undergo a phase transition in terms of the applied drift (force): If the drift is strong enough, then the walk is ballistic, whereas in the case of small drifts self-attraction wins and the walk is sub-ballistic. We show that, in any dimension \(d\geq2\), this transition is of first order. In fact, we prove that the walk is already ballistic at critical drifts, and establish the corresponding LLN and CLT (see also [\textit{E. Kosygina} and \textit{T. Mountford}, Stochastic Processes Appl. 122, No. 1, 277--304 (2012; Zbl 1231.60120)] and [the authors, Commun. Math. Phys. 323, No. 1, 449--450 (2013; Zbl 1295.60054)]).