Bounded valence excess and the parabolicity of tilings (Q5953075)

One can define the discrete conformal modulus of a triangulated, tiled, or shingled quadrilateral, annulus, or half-open annulus, in exact combinatorial analogy with the classical continuous conformal case in Riemannian geometry. The classical distinctions are relevant in the combinatorial case as well as in the classical case; for example, an annulus or half-open annulus can be of parabolic or of hyperbolic type. This paper proves a conjecture of He and Schramm which gives a combinatorial criterion for a half-open annulus to be (combinatorially) parabolic. Here is the criterion. Let \(T\) be a triangulation of the open disk. Remove the interior of one of the triangles to obtain a half-open annulus. Define the valence \(\text{val}(v)\) of the vertex \(v\) to be the number of edges amenating from \(v\). The valence excess at \(v\) is the number \(\text{val}(v)- 6\), which may be positive or negative. Let \(a_n\) be the total valence excess summed over all vertices \(v\) within graph distance \(n\) of a fixed vertex \(v_0\). Then the half-open annulus is parabolic if the sequence \(a_1,a_2,\dots\) is bounded.