Nonconcentration of return times

We show that the distribution of the first return time $\tau$ to the origin, v, of a simple random walk on an infinite recurrent graph is heavy tailed and nonconcentrated. More precisely, if $d_v$ is the degree of v, then for any $t\geq1$ we have $$\mathbf{P}_v(\tau\ge t)\ge\frac{c}{d_v\sqrt{t}}$$ and $$\mathbf{P}_v(\tau=t\mid\tau\geq t)\leq\frac{C\log(d_vt)}{t}$$ for some universal constants $c>0$ and $C<\infty$. The first bound is attained for all t when the underlying graph is $\mathbb{Z}$, and as for the second bound, we construct an example of a recurrent graph G for which it is attained for infinitely many t's. Furthermore, we show that in the comb product of that graph G with $\mathbb{Z}$, two independent random walks collide infinitely many times almost surely. This answers negatively a question of Krishnapur and Peres [Electron. Commun. Probab. 9 (2004) 72-81] who asked whether every comb product of two infinite recurrent graphs has the finite collision property.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/12-AOP785 the Annals of Probability (http://www.imstat.org/aop/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

On Fixation of Activated Random Walks

We prove that for the Activated Random Walks model on transitive unimodular graphs, if there is fixation, then every particle eventually fixates, almost surely. We deduce that the critical density is at most 1. Our methods apply for much more general processes on unimodular graphs. Roughly put, our result apply whenever the path of each particle has an automorphism invariant distribution and is independent of other particles' paths, and the interaction between particles is automorphism invariant and local. This allows us to answer a question of Rolla and Sidoravicius, in a more general setting then had been previously known (by Shellef).Comment: 5 page