Rayleigh processes, real trees, and root growth with re-grafting (Q816985)

A complete metric space \((X,d)\) is said to be a real tree if for all \(x, y\in X\) there exists a unique isometric embedding \(\varphi_{x,y}: [0,d(x,y)]\to X\) such that \(\varphi_{x,y}(0)=x, \varphi_{x,y}(d(x,y))=y\) and for every injective continuous map \(\psi: [0,1]\to X\) one has \(\psi([0,1])=\varphi_{\psi(0),\psi(1)}([0,d(\psi(0),\psi(1))]).\) The real trees form a class of metric spaces that extends the class of trees with edge lengths by allowing behavior such as infinite total edge length and vertices with infinite branching degrees. Aldous' Brownian continuum random tree may be treated as a random compact real tree. The Aldous-Broder algorithm is a Markov chain on the space of rooted combinatorial trees with \(N\) vertices that has the uniform tree as a stationary distribution. The authors construct and study a Markov process on the space of all rooted compact real trees that has the continuum random tree as its stationary distribution and appears as a scaling limit as \(N\to\infty\) of the Aldous-Broder chain. An essential novelty of this paper is the use of a pointed Gromov-Hausdorff distance to metrize the space of rooted compact real trees.