No label defined (Q4946136)

Consider supercritical bond percolation on \(\mathbb Z^d\) for \(d\geq 3\). It is known that a simple random walk on the infinite cluster is almost surely transient. Further, it is known that this result is equivalent to the existence of a non-zero flow \(f\) on the infinite cluster such that the \(q\)-energy \(\sum_e f(e)^q\) is finite for \(q=2\). (Recall that a function \(f\) on the set of the cluster's directed edges is called a flow with source \(v_0\) if \(f\) is antisymmetric, i.e., \(f(vw)=-f(wv)\) for all sites \(v,w\in\mathbb Z^d\) such that the edge between \(v\) and \(w\) is open, and satisfies \(\sum_w f(vw)=0\) for every \(v\not= v_0\).) The present paper sharpens the above result by showing the existence of a non-zero flow (on the infinite cluster) having finite \(q\)-energy for all \(q>d/(d-1)\). As a result, any sequence \((\Pi_n)_{n\in\mathbb N}\) of disjoint cutsets (i.e., subsets of the edge set that separate a given edge from infinity) satisfies \(\sum_n|\Pi_n|^{-\beta}<\infty\) for all \(\beta>1/(d-1)\). The corresponding result for site percolation also holds with identical proof. The proof is based on the method of ``unpredictable paths'' previously developed by \textit{I. Benjamini, R. Pemantle} and \textit{Y. Peres} [Ann. Probab. 26, No. 3, 1198-1211 (1998; Zbl 0937.60070)]. For the entire collection see [Zbl 0930.00053].