English

Faster random walks via infrequent steering

Probability 2026-05-19 v1 Combinatorics

Abstract

Random walks on graphs can be slow. To speed them up, imagine that at each step instead of choosing the neighbor at random, there is a small probability ε>0\varepsilon>0 that we can choose it. We show that in this case, at least for graphs of bounded degree, there is a way to steer the walk so that it visits every vertex in n1+o(1)n^{1+o(1)} steps with high probability. The key to this result is a way to decompose arbitrary graphs into small-diameter pieces.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2605.18712,
  title  = {Faster random walks via infrequent steering},
  author = {Boris Bukh and Quentin Dubroff},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2605.18712},
  year   = {2026}
}