The law of large numbers for ballistic, multi-dimensional random walks on random lattices with correlated sites (Q1868120)

The authors consider the following model, the random walk in random environment. For any \(k\in\mathbb Z^d\), there is a random vector \(p_k=(p_k(e))_{|e|=1}\) of probabilities summing up to one. The family \(p=(p_k)_{k\in\mathbb Z^d}\) is the random environment. Given this family, a random walker \(X=(X_n)_{n\in\mathbb N}\) on \(\mathbb Z^d\) jumps, when present at site \(k\), to the neighbor \(k+e\) with probability \(p_k(e)\). Hence, conditioned on the (highly disordered) environment \(p\), \(X\) is a spatially inhomogeneous Markov chain. This property is lost under the so-called annealed law, where one averages over the walk and the environment. The one-dimensional case has been studied intensively since the mid-seventies and is basically well understood. However, the higher-dimensional case (on which a huge research activity has been started at the end of the nineties) is still largely open and is a source of many heuristical errors. The authors do not assume that the environment is i.i.d., but they admit dependence, but impose stationarity and a condition that ensures finite-range dependence. Furthermore, a kind of non-nestling condition is imposed: The convex hull of the support of the variable \(\sum_{|e|=1}ep_0(e)\) lies on one side of a certain hyperplane. This condition implies a drift of sufficiently large size into a certain direction. The main result of this paper is a law of large numbers for the endpoint of the walker, \(X_n\), as \(n\to\infty\), under the annealed law. Such a result has been proven already by \textit{A.-S. Sznitman} and \textit{M. Zerner} [Ann. Probab. 27, No. 4, 1851-1869 (1999; Zbl 0965.60100)] but under the stronger assumption of independence of the environment, under the so-called Kalikov drift condition. Under the hypotheses of the article under consideration, and in contrast to the case of Sznitman-Zerner, the sequence \((\tau_n)_{n\in\mathbb N}\) of the first-passage times to certain parallel hyperplanes has no renewal structure, which was an important issue there. The main novelty of the paper is the construction of a new path measure that is absolutely continuous with respect to the original one, such that the sequence \((X_{\tau_{n+1}}-X_{\tau_n},\tau_{n+1}-\tau_n)_{n\in\mathbb N}\) is stationary and ergodic under the new law.