English

Limit set of branching random walks on hyperbolic groups

Probability 2020-07-28 v1 Dynamical Systems Metric Geometry

Abstract

Let Γ\Gamma be a nonelementary hyperbolic group with a word metric dd and Γ\partial\Gamma its hyperbolic boundary equipped with a visual metric dad_a for some parameter a>1a>1. Fix a superexponential symmetric probability μ\mu on Γ\Gamma whose support generates Γ\Gamma as a semigroup, and denote by ρ\rho the spectral radius of the random walk YY on Γ\Gamma with step distribution μ\mu. Let ν\nu be a probability on {1,2,3,}\{1,\, 2, \, 3, \, \ldots\} with mean λ=k=1kν(k)<\lambda=\sum\limits_{k=1}^\infty k\nu(k)<\infty. Let BRW(Γ,ν,μ)\mathrm{BRW}(\Gamma, \, \nu, \, \mu) be the branching random walk on Γ\Gamma with offspring distribution ν\nu and base motion YY and H(λ)H(\lambda) the volume growth rate for the trace of BRW(Γ,ν,μ)\mathrm{BRW}(\Gamma, \, \nu, \, \mu). We prove for λ[1,ρ1)\lambda \in [1, \, \rho^{-1}) that the Hausdorff dimension of the limit set Λ\Lambda, which is the random subset of (Γ,da)(\partial \Gamma, \, d_a) consisting of all accumulation points of the trace of BRW(Γ,ν,μ)\mathrm{BRW}(\Gamma, \, \nu, \, \mu), is given by logaH(λ)\log_a H(\lambda). Furthermore, we prove that H(λ)H(\lambda) is almost surely a deterministic, strictly increasing and continuous function of λ[1,ρ1]\lambda \in [1, \, \rho^{-1}], is bounded by the square root of the volume growth rate of Γ\Gamma, and has critical exponent 1/21/2 at ρ1\rho^{-1} in the sense that H(ρ1)H(λ)Cρ1λas λρ1 H(\rho^{-1}) - H(\lambda) \sim C \sqrt{\rho^{-1} - \lambda} \quad \text{as } \lambda \uparrow \rho^{-1} for some positive constant CC. We conjecture that the Hausdorff dimension of Λ\Lambda in the critical case λ=ρ1\lambda=\rho^{-1} is logaH(ρ1)\log_aH(\rho^{-1}) almost surely. This has been confirmed on free groups or the free product (by amalgamation) of finitely many finite groups equipped with the word metric dd defined by the standard generating set.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2007.13267,
  title  = {Limit set of branching random walks on hyperbolic groups},
  author = {Vladas Sidoravicius and Longmin Wang and Kainan Xiang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2007.13267},
  year   = {2020}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-23T17:25:05.772Z