English

How fast does a random walk cover a torus?

Statistical Mechanics 2017-07-19 v3

Abstract

We present high statistics simulation data for the average time Tcover(L)\langle T_{\rm cover}(L)\rangle that a random walk needs to cover completely a 2-dimensional torus of size L×LL\times L. They confirm the mathematical prediction that Tcover(L)(LlnL)2\langle T_{\rm cover}(L)\rangle \sim (L \ln L)^2 for large LL, but the prefactor {\it seems} to deviate significantly from the supposedly exact result 4/π4/\pi derived by A. Dembo {\it et al.}, Ann. Math. {\bf 160}, 433 (2004), if the most straightforward extrapolation is used. On the other hand, we find that this scaling does hold for the time TN(t)=1(L) T_{\rm N(t)=1}(L) at which the average number of yet unvisited sites is 1, as also predicted previously. This might suggest (wrongly) that Tcover(L)\langle T_{\rm cover}(L)\rangle and TN(t)=1(L)T_{\rm N(t)=1}(L) scale differently, although the distribution of rescaled cover times becomes sharp in the limit LL\to\infty. But our results can be reconciled with those of Dembo {\it et al.} by a very slow and {\it non-monotonic} convergence of Tcover(L)/(LlnL)2\langle T_{\rm cover}(L)\rangle/(L \ln L)^2, as had been indeed proven by Belius {\it et al.} [Prob. Theory \& Related Fields {\bf 167}, 1 (2014)] for Brownian walks, and was conjectured by them to hold also for lattice walks.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1704.05039,
  title  = {How fast does a random walk cover a torus?},
  author = {Peter Grassberger},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1704.05039},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

4 pages, 9 figures; to be published in Phys. Rev. E

R2 v1 2026-06-22T19:19:16.572Z