English

Non-intersection of transient branching random walks

Probability 2020-02-14 v2 Group Theory

Abstract

Let GG be a Cayley graph of a nonamenable group with spectral radius ρ<1\rho < 1. It is known that branching random walk on GG with offspring distribution μ\mu is transient, i.e., visits the origin at most finitely often almost surely, if and only if the expected number of offspring μˉ\bar \mu satisfies μˉρ1\bar \mu \leq \rho^{-1}. Benjamini and M\"uller (2010) conjectured that throughout the transient supercritical phase 1<μˉρ11<\bar{\mu} \leq \rho^{-1}, and in particular at the recurrence threshold μˉ=ρ1\bar \mu = \rho^{-1}, the trace of the branching random walk is tree-like in the sense that it is infinitely-ended almost surely on the event that the walk survives forever. This is essentially equivalent to the assertion that two independent copies of the branching random walk intersect at most finitely often almost surely. We prove this conjecture, along with several other related conjectures made by the same authors. A central contribution of this work is the introduction of the notion of local unimodularity, which we expect to have several further applications in the future.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1910.01018,
  title  = {Non-intersection of transient branching random walks},
  author = {Tom Hutchcroft},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1910.01018},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

22 pages V2: Several minor corrections and improvements. Accepted version, to appear in PTRF

R2 v1 2026-06-23T11:32:52.221Z