Anchored expansion, percolation and speed. (With an appendix by Gábor Pete) (Q1769504)

The authors study probabilistic models on various random perturbations (such as e.g. obtained by random dilution or random stretching) of various, either amenable or nonamenable, graphs. In particular, they consider the speed of random walks and the positivity of a version of the Cheeger constant (the minimal asymptotic surface to volume ratio on the graph), called the anchored expansion constant. Such positivity implies a positive random walk speed as has been shown by Virag. Some sufficient conditions are provided, and a sharper one by G. Pete is included in an Appendix. The authors then prove a number of results in support of conjectures of Benjamini, Lyons and Schramm, e.g. that both positivity and nonpositivity of the speed of random walks is preserved under a regular class of such random perturbations. In particular, they show that on infinite percolation clusters of the Cayley graphs of lamplighter groups this occurs.