English

Random spanning trees in random environment

Probability 2026-05-19 v4 Combinatorics

Abstract

We introduce a new spanning tree model called the random spanning tree in random environment (RSTRE), which interpolates between the uniform spanning tree and the minimum spanning tree as the inverse temperature (disorder strength) β\beta varies. On the complete graph with nn vertices and i.i.d.\ uniform disorder variables on the edges, we identify: (1) a low disorder regime with βCn/logn\beta \leq C n/\log n, where the diameter of the random spanning tree is typically of order n1/2n^{1/2}, the same as for the uniform spanning tree; (2) a high disorder regime with βn4/3logn\beta \geq n^{4/3} \log n, where the diameter is typically of order n1/3n^{1/3}, the same as for the minimum spanning tree. We conjecture that for β=nα\beta=n^{\alpha} with α(1,4/3)\alpha \in (1, 4/3), the diameter is of order nγ+o(1)n^{\gamma+o(1)} for some γ=γ(α)\gamma=\gamma(\alpha) strictly between 1/21/2 and 1/31/3.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2410.16830,
  title  = {Random spanning trees in random environment},
  author = {Luca Makowiec and Michele Salvi and Rongfeng Sun},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2410.16830},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

37 pages, 2 figures. Comments are welcome! To appear in Annals of Applied Probability

R2 v1 2026-06-28T19:31:09.343Z