The bunkbed conjecture is not robust to generalisation
Abstract
The bunkbed conjecture, which has featured in the folklore of probability theory since at least 1985, concerns bond percolation on the product graph . We have two copies and of , and if and are the copies of a vertex in and respectively, then edge is present. The conjecture states that, for vertices , percolation from to is at least as likely as percolation from to . While the conjecture is widely expected to be true, having attracted significant attention, a general proof has not been forthcoming. In this paper we consider three natural generalisations of the bunkbed conjecture; to site percolation, to hypergraphs, and to directed graphs. Our main aim is to show that all these generalisations are false, and to this end we construct a sequence of counterexamples to these statements. However, we also consider under what extra conditions these generalisations might hold, and give some classes of graph for which the bunkbed conjecture for site percolation does hold.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2406.01790,
title = {The bunkbed conjecture is not robust to generalisation},
author = {Lawrence Hollom},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2406.01790},
year = {2024}
}
Comments
16 pages