English

Is 'being above the median' a noise sensitive property?

Probability 2025-06-25 v2

Abstract

Assign independent weights to the edges of the square lattice, from the uniform distribution on {a,b}\{a,b\} for some 0<a<b<0<a<b<\infty. The weighted graph induces a random metric on Z2\mathbb{Z}^2. Let TnT_n denote the distance between (0,0)(0,0) and (n,0)(n,0) in this metric. The distribution of TnT_n has a well-defined median. Itai Benjamini asked in 2011 if the sequence of Boolean functions encoding whether TnT_n exceeds its median is noise sensitive? In this paper we present the first progress on Benjamini's problem. More precisely, we study the minimal weight along any path crossing an n×nn\times n-square horizontally and whose vertical fluctuation is smaller than n1/22n^{1/22}, and show that for this observable, 'being above the median' is a noise sensitive property.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2308.16388,
  title  = {Is 'being above the median' a noise sensitive property?},
  author = {Daniel Ahlberg and Daniel de la Riva},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2308.16388},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

A YouTube video introducing this article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAJzVsAwHZs