English

Phase transition for recurrence of stationary random walks on lamplighter groups

Probability 2025-10-09 v1 Group Theory

Abstract

We introduce and study a class of random walks on lamplighter groups HGH\wr G, where HH is a nontrivial finitely generated group and GG is an infinite finitely generated group, called \textbf{stationary random walks}. At each step, the walk switches the lamp at its current position, moves in the base group with a drift towards the identity, and switches the lamp again at the new position. We show that when GG is virtually-Z\mathbb{Z} and HH is finite, these walks exhibit a phase transition between recurrence and transience, while when~GG is not virtually-Z\mathbb{Z} or HH is infinite, they are always transient. In the case G=ZG=\mathbb{Z}, we determine the exact critical parameter and provide a quantitative description of this phase transition.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2510.06441,
  title  = {Phase transition for recurrence of stationary random walks on lamplighter groups},
  author = {Itai Benjamini and Guy Blachar and Ariel Yadin},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2510.06441},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

21 pages. Comments are welcome!