English

Linear Cover Time is Exponentially Unlikely

Probability 2010-11-16 v1 Combinatorics

Abstract

We show that the probability that a simple random walk covers a finite, bounded degree graph in linear time is exponentially small. More precisely, for every D and C, there exists a=a(D,C)>0 such that for any graph G, with n vertices and maximal degree D, the probability that a simple random walk, started anywhere in G, will visit every vertex of G in its first Cn steps is at most exp(-an). We conjecture that the same holds for a=a(C)>0 that does not depend on D, provided that the graph G is simple.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1011.3118,
  title  = {Linear Cover Time is Exponentially Unlikely},
  author = {Itai Benjamini and Ori Gurel-Gurevich and Ben Morris},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1011.3118},
  year   = {2010}
}

Comments

11 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-21T16:43:20.099Z