A crossover for the bad configurations of random walk in random scenery

DOI10.1214/11-AOP664MaRDI QIDQ651012zbMATH OpenFDO

Authors Sébastien Blachère, Jeffrey E. Steif, F. den Hollander

Publication date 8 December 2011

Published in The Annals of Probability (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1103.1780

bad and good configurations conditional probability distribution large deviations random walk in random scenery

Sums of independent random variables; random walks (60G50) Processes in random environments (60K37) Lattice systems (Ising, dimer, Potts, etc.) and systems on graphs arising in equilibrium statistical mechanics (82B20)

Abstract: In this paper, we consider a random walk and a random color scenery on Z. The increments of the walk and the colors of the scenery are assumed to be i.i.d. and to be independent of each other. We are interested in the random process of colors seen by the walk in the course of time. Bad configurations for this random process are the discontinuity points of the conditional probability distribution for the color seen at time zero given the colors seen at all later times. We focus on the case where the random walk has increments 0, +1 or -1 with probability epsilon, (1-epsilon)p and (1-epsilon)(1-p), respectively, with p in [1/2,1] and epsilon in [0,1), and where the scenery assigns the color black or white to the sites of Z with probability 1/2 each. We show that, remarkably, the set of bad configurations exhibits a crossover: for epsilon=0 and p in (1/2,4/5) all configurations are bad, while for (p,epsilon) in an open neighborhood of (1,0) all configurations are good. In addition, we show that for epsilon=0 and p=1/2 both bad and good configurations exist. We conjecture that for all epsilon in [0,1) the crossover value is unique and equals 4/5. Finally, we suggest an approach to handle the seemingly more difficult case where epsilon>0 and p in [1/2,4/5), which will be pursued in future work.

Review text

A random walk and a random color scenery on \(\mathbb Z\) are considered. The increments of the walk and the colors of the scenery are assumed to be i.i.d. and to be independent of each other. The random process of colors seen by the walk during the course of time is studied. Bad configurations for this random process are the discontinuity points of the conditional probability distribution for the color seen at time zero given the colors seen at all later times. The case where the random walk has increments \(0, +1\) or \(-1\) with probability \(\varepsilon\), \((1-\varepsilon)p\) and \((1-\varepsilon)(1-p)\), respectively, with \(p\in [1/2, 1]\) and \(\varepsilon\in [0,1)\), and where the scenery assigns the color black or white to the sites of \(\mathbb Z\) with probability \(1/2\) each is considered. It is proved that the set of bad configurations exhibits a crossover: for \(\varepsilon=0\) and \(p\in (1/2, 4/5)\) all configurations are bad, while for \((p,\varepsilon)\) in an open neighborhood of \((1,0)\) all configurations are good. Also, it is shown that, for \(\varepsilon=0\) and \(p=1/2\), both bad and good configurations exist.

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