Renormalisation Group Theory of Branching Potts Interfaces

We develop a field-theoretic representation for the configurations of an interface between two ordered phases of a q-state Potts model in two dimensions, in the solid-on-solid approximation. The model resembles the field theory of directed percolation and may be analysed using similar renormalisation group methods. In the one-loop approximation these reveal a simple mechanism for the emergence of a critical value q_c, such that for q<q_c the interface becomes a fractal with a vanishing interfacial tension at the critical point, while for q>q_c the interfacial width diverges at a finite value of the tension, indicating a first-order transition. The value of the Widom exponent for q<q_c within this approximation is in fair agreement with known exact values. Some comments are made on the case of quenched randomness. We also show that the q-> minus infinity limit of our model corresponds to directed percolation and that the values for the exponents in the one-loop approximation are in reasonable agreement with accepted values.Comment: 24 page

The coalescing-branching random walk on expanders and the dual epidemic process

Information propagation on graphs is a fundamental topic in distributed computing. One of the simplest models of information propagation is the push protocol in which at each round each agent independently pushes the current knowledge to a random neighbour. In this paper we study the so-called coalescing-branching random walk (COBRA), in which each vertex pushes the information to $k$ randomly selected neighbours and then stops passing information until it receives the information again. The aim of COBRA is to propagate information fast but with a limited number of transmissions per vertex per step. In this paper we study the cover time of the COBRA process defined as the minimum time until each vertex has received the information at least once. Our main result says that if $G$ is an $n$-vertex $r$-regular graph whose transition matrix has second eigenvalue $\lambda$, then the COBRA cover time of $G$ is $\mathcal O(\log n )$, if $1-\lambda$ is greater than a positive constant, and $\mathcal O((\log n)/(1-\lambda)^3))$, if $1-\lambda \gg \sqrt{\log( n)/n}$. These bounds are independent of $r$ and hold for $3 \le r \le n-1$. They improve the previous bound of $O(\log^2 n)$ for expander graphs. Our main tool in analysing the COBRA process is a novel duality relation between this process and a discrete epidemic process, which we call a biased infection with persistent source (BIPS). A fixed vertex $v$ is the source of an infection and remains permanently infected. At each step each vertex $u$ other than $v$ selects $k$ neighbours, independently and uniformly, and $u$ is infected in this step if and only if at least one of the selected neighbours has been infected in the previous step. We show the duality between COBRA and BIPS which says that the time to infect the whole graph in the BIPS process is of the same order as the cover time of the COBRA proces

Random walk on a randomly oriented honeycomb lattice

We study the recurrence behaviour of random walks on partially oriented honeycomb lattices. The vertical edges are undirected while the orientation of the horizontal edges is random: depending on their distribution, we prove a.s. transience in some cases, and a.s. recurrence in other ones. The results extend those obtained for the partially oriented square grid lattices (Campanino and Petritis (2003), Campanino and Petritis (2014)).Comment: 21 pages, 1 figure; revised 'motivation' section and abstract; added conclusion; minor correction