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Chemical distance for smooth Gaussian fields in higher dimension

Probability 2025-03-31 v1

Abstract

Gaussian percolation can be seen as the generalization of standard Bernoulli percolation on Zd\mathbb{Z}^d. Instead of a random discrete configuration on a lattice, we consider a continuous Gaussian field ff and we study the topological and geometric properties of the random excursion set E(f):={xRd  f(x)}\mathcal{E}_\ell(f) := \{x\in \mathbb{R}^d\ |\ f(x)\geq -\ell\} where R\ell\in \mathbb{R} is called a level. It is known that for a wide variety of fields ff, there exists a phase transition at some critical level c\ell_c. When >c\ell> \ell_c, the excursion set E(f)\mathcal{E}_\ell(f) presents a unique unbounded component while if <c\ell<\ell_c there are only bounded components in E(f)\mathcal{E}_\ell(f). In the supercritical regime, >c\ell>\ell_c, we study the geometry of the unbounded cluster. Inspired by the work of Peter Antal and Agoston Pisztora for the Bernoulli model \cite{Antal}, we introduce the chemical distance between two points xx and yy as the Euclidean length of the shortest path connecting these points and staying in E(f)\mathcal{E}_\ell(f). In this paper, we show that when >c\ell>-\ell_c then with high probability, the chemical distance between two points has a behavior close to the Euclidean distance between those two points.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2503.22434,
  title  = {Chemical distance for smooth Gaussian fields in higher dimension},
  author = {David Vernotte},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2503.22434},
  year   = {2025}
}