A Lower Bound on the Growth Exponent for Loop-Erased Random Walk in Two Dimensions

The growth exponent $\alpha$ for loop-erased or Laplacian random walk on the integer lattice is defined by saying that the expected time to reach the sphere of radius $n$ is of order $n^\alpha$. We prove that in two dimensions, the growth exponent is strictly greater than one. The proof uses a known estimate on the third moment of the escape probability and an improvement on the discrete Beurling projection theorem.