The self-avoiding walk
critical exponentsKesten's pattern theoremlace expansionMonte Carlo techniquespolymer scienceratio limit theoremsself-avoiding walkstatistical mechanics
Paths and cycles (05C38) Research exposition (monographs, survey articles) pertaining to probability theory (60-02) Interacting random processes; statistical mechanics type models; percolation theory (60K35) Research exposition (monographs, survey articles) pertaining to statistical mechanics (82-02) Random walks, random surfaces, lattice animals, etc. in equilibrium statistical mechanics (82B41) Dynamics of random walks, random surfaces, lattice animals, etc. in time-dependent statistical mechanics (82C41)
A self-avoiding walk (SAW) on a lattice is a path which visits no site more than once. The SAW is a mathematical model which has important applications in statistical mechanics and in polymer science. In spite of the simple definition of SAW, the properties of typical SAW's are difficult to analyse rigorously. For example, what is the distance between the endpoints of a typical SAW of length \(n\) on the square lattice? The answers to this and to other important questions remain unknown in a rigorous mathematical sense, although physicists and chemists have well developed but non-rigorous techniques to approach such questions. Mathematicians also have made much recent progress. The book under review is the first unified account of the rigorous theory. ``Its goals are to give an account of the current mathematical understanding of the model, to indicate some of the applications of the concept in physics and in chemistry, and to give an introduction to some of the non-rigorous methods used in those fields. For simplicity, consider SAW's on the \(d\)-dimensional hypercubic lattice \(\mathbb{Z}^ d\), where \(d\geq 2\). The two basic questions are (a) how many SAW's of length \(n\) exist, (b) how far apart (on the average) are the endpoints of such a SAW? In a famous paper, \textit{J. M. Hammersley} and \textit{J. G. Morton} [J. Roy. Stat. Soc., Ser. B 16, 23-38 (1954; Zbl 0055.369)] showed that the number \(c_ n\) of such walks satisfies \(c_{m+n}\leq c_ mc_ n\), whence by subadditivity the connective constant \(\mu=\lim_{n\to\infty}c_ n^{1/n}\) exists. The power series \(\chi(z)=\sum_ nc_ nz^ n\) has radius of convergence \(z_ c=\mu^{-1}\), and \(z_ c\) plays the role of the critical point of the model (akin to the critical temperature of a model of statistical mechanics). A principle target is to understand the behaviour of \(\chi\) and other related power series in the vicinity of the singularity \(z_ c\): what is the nature of this singularity, and how does it depend on the number \(d\) of dimensions? Such questions are related to that of understanding the asymptotics of \(c_ n\) as \(n\to\infty\). Specifically, does there exist \(\gamma=\gamma(d)\) such that \(c_ n\sim An^{\gamma-1}\mu^ n\) as \(n\to\infty\)? Such a \(\gamma\) is one of a family of `critical exponents' associated with SAW's. As in the case for other processes, there is a `scaling theory' which makes predictions about the relations between these exponents. A principal part of the volume is devoted to the theory of the lace expansion in the context of SAW's. Chapters 5 and 6 contain a careful account of the Hara-Slade theorem on mean-field behaviour of SAW's when \(d\geq 5\) (details are given for the `spread-out' model, as well as for the nearest-neighbour model for large \(d)\). This conclusion, obtained via the `bubble condition', implies the existence of certain critical exponents, as well as their numerical values. The work of these two chapters is of major current significance. Chapter 9 is a lengthy account of Monte Carlo techniques used to obtain numerical estimates of connective constants, critical exponents, and other numerical values. This account should be very useful to researchers on SAW's and similar processes. Other chapters contain detailed descriptions of properties of the two-point function, Kesten's pattern theorem and ratio limit theorems, as well as results for polygons, bridges, and knots. Of course, SAW's are just the introduction to the general topic of repulsive and/or attractive walks, a hard and broad topic of enormous contemporary interest and importance. Some such relatives of the SAW are mentioned in Chapter 10. This volume is, together with the recent book of \textit{G. F. Lawler} [Intersections of random walks (Birkhäuser, 1991)], one of the two landmarks of the modern rigorous theory of walks on lattices.
- Ballistic behavior for biased self-avoiding walks
- Lyapounov norms for random walks in low disorder and dimension greater than three
- Conditions for rapid mixing of parallel and simulated tempering on multimodal distributions
- Thoughts on lattice knot statistics
- Self-avoiding walks in slits and slabs with interactive walls
- End patterns of self-avoiding walks
- Self-avoiding walks in quenched random environments
- Entanglement complexity of lattice ribbons
- Monte Carlo simulation of SATs in 2D
- Enumeration of three-dimensional convex polygons
- Directional decay of the Green's function for a random nonnegative potential on \(\mathbb{Z}^d\)
- A pattern of asymptotic vertex valency distributions in planar maps
- Mean-field lattice trees
- Several constants arising in statistical mechanics
- A pattern theorem for lattice clusters
- Self-avoiding walks
- The drift of a one-dimensional self-repellent random walk with bounded increments
- On self-attracting \(d\)-dimensional random walks
- Self-avoiding walks with writhe
- The abstract lace expansion
- The complexity of counting self-avoiding walks in subgraphs of two-dimensional grids and hypercubes.
- The lace expansion on a tree with application to networks of self-avoiding walks
- Large deviations for the one-dimensional Edwards model.
- Intersecting loop models on \({\mathbb Z}^ d\): rigorous results.
- A rigorous bound on the critical exponent for the number of lattice trees, animals, and polygons.
- Critical exponents, hyperscaling, and universal amplitude ratios for two- and three-dimensional self-avoiding walks.
- Twist in an exactly solvable directed lattice ribbon.
- A note on mean-field behavior for self-avoiding walk on branching planes.
- A Monte Carlo algorithm for lattice ribbons.
- Square lattice
- Critical phenomena and renormalization-group theory
- Efficient algorithm for computing exact partition functions of lattice polymer models
- Self-avoiding walks and amenability
- Random walks and diffusion on networks
- An optimal algorithm to generate extendable self-avoiding walks in arbitrary dimension
- Critical exponents for long-range \(\mathrm O(n)\) models below the upper critical dimension
- An upper bound on the number of self-avoiding polygons via joining
- Monte Carlo study of four-dimensional self-avoiding walks of up to one billion steps
- Locality of connective constants
- Ornstein-Zernike theory for the Bernoulli bond percolation on \(\mathbb Z^d\)
- Critical two-point functions and the lace expansion for spread-out high-dimensional percolation and related models.
- Markov chain decomposition for convergence rate analysis
- Self-attractive random polymers.
- The broken supersymmetry phase of a self-avoiding random walk
- Scaling for a random polymer
- The number of smallest knots on the cubic lattice
- Self-avoiding walks and trees in spread-out lattices
- `True' self-avoiding walks with generalized bond repulsion on \(\mathbb{Z}\)
- Ballistic behavior in a 1D weakly self-avoiding walk with decaying energy penalty
- A new discrete Edwards model and a new polymer measure in two dimensions
- Self-avoiding walks, the language of science, and Fibonacci numbers
- Non-backtracking random walk
- On the Domb-Joyce model for self-avoiding walks in the continuum.
- Universal properties of self-avoiding walks from two-dimensional field theory
- Critical two-point function for long-range models with power-law couplings: the marginal case for \({d\ge d_{\mathrm{c}}}\)
- Self avoiding walk trees and laces
- Asymptotics of 3-stack-sortable permutations
- Harry Kesten's work in probability theory
- NoBLE for lattice trees and lattice animals
- Walks obeying two-step rules on the square lattice: full, half and quarter planes
- A simple convergence proof for the lace expansion
- Adsorption of lattice polymers with quenched topologies
- Growth rate of quantum knot mosaics
- Weighted self-avoiding walks
- A survey on the lace expansion for the nearest-neighbor models on the BCC lattice
- Cubic graphs and the golden mean
- A symmetry motivated link table
- Self-attracting self-avoiding walk
- Critical two-point functions for long-range statistical-mechanical models in high dimensions
- Logarithmic correction for the susceptibility of the 4-dimensional weakly self-avoiding walk: a renormalisation group analysis
- The fixed irreducible bridge ensemble for self-avoiding walks
- Critical two-point function of the 4-dimensional weakly self-avoiding walk
- Self-avoiding walks in a rectangle
- Haruspicy 2: The anisotropic generating function of self-avoiding polygons is not D-finite
- Exponential lower bounds for the number of words of uniform length avoiding a pattern
- Senile reinforced random walks
- On self-avoiding polygons and walks: the snake method via polygon joining
- Partially directed paths in a wedge
- Asymptotic behavior of the gyration radius for long-range self-avoiding walk and long-range oriented percolation
- Large deviations for local times and intersection local times of fractional Brownian motions and Riemann-Liouville processes
- Growing self avoiding walk trees
- The critical fugacity for surface adsorption of self-avoiding walks on the honeycomb lattice is \(1+\sqrt{2}\)
- Supercritical self-avoiding walks are space-filling
- The length of an SLE -- Monte Carlo studies
- Lace expansion for the Ising model
- Pattern theorems, ratio limit theorems and Gumbel maximal clusters for random fields
- Large deviations estimates for self-intersection local times for simple random walk in \({\mathbb{Z}}^3\)
- Decay of correlations in nearest-neighbor self-avoiding walk, percolation, lattice trees and animals
- Families of \(m\)-convex polygons: \(m=1\)
- The Erdős--Nagy theorem and its ramifications
- New lower bounds on the self-avoiding-walk connective constant
- Entropy-driven phase transition in low-temperature antiferromagnetic Potts models
- A central limit theorem for a one-dimensional polymer measure
- Random subgraphs of finite graphs. II: The lace expansion and the triangle condition
- Critical points for spread-out self-avoiding walk, percolation and the contact process above the upper critical dimensions
- Critical correlation functions for the 4-dimensional weakly self-avoiding walk and \(n\)-component \(|\varphi|^4\) model
- The language of self-avoiding walks
- Counting walks by their last erased self-avoiding polygons using sieves
- Contacts in self-avoiding walks and polygons
- On the speed of the one-dimensional polymer in the large range regime
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