English

Random Walk in Changing Environment

Probability 2017-07-05 v3

Abstract

In this paper we introduce the notion of Random Walk in Changing Environment - a random walk in which each step is performed in a different graph on the same set of vertices, or more generally, a weighted random walk on the same vertex and edge sets but with different (possibly 0) weights in each step. This is a very wide class of RW, which includes some well known types of RW as special cases (e.g. reinforced RW, true SAW). We define and explore various possible properties of such walks, and provide criteria for recurrence and transience when the underlying graph is N\mathbb{N} or a tree. We provide an example of such a process on Z2\mathbb{Z}^2 where conductances can only change from 11 to 22 (once for each edge) but nevertheless the walk is transient, and conjecture that such behaviour cannot happen when the weights are chosen in advance, that is, do not depend on the location of the RW.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1504.04870,
  title  = {Random Walk in Changing Environment},
  author = {Gideon Amir and Itai Benjamini and Ori Gurel-Gurevich and Gady Kozma},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1504.04870},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

22 pages, revised the open questions regarding continuous time, acknowledgments and references. Typo fixed in example 3.6 3rd version: includes new proof of the transience of the MAW on Z^2, with the old proof moved to the appendix. Also includes minor fixes

R2 v1 2026-06-22T09:18:37.846Z