Properties of the limit shape for some last passage growth models in random environments

We study directed last passage percolation on the first quadrant of the planar square lattice whose weights have general distributions, or equivalently, ./G/1 queues in series. The service time distributions of the servers vary randomly which constitutes a random environment for the model. Equivalently, each row of the last passage model has its own randomly chosen weight distribution. We investigate the limiting time constant close to the boundary of the quadrant. Close to the y-axis, where the number of random distributions averaged over stays large, the limiting time constant takes the same universal form as in the homogeneous model. But close to the x-axis we see the effect of the tail of the distribution of the random means attached to the rows.Comment: 24 pages, this paper has been accepted for publication in Stochastic Processes and their Application

Current fluctuations of a system of one-dimensional random walks in random environment

We study the current of particles that move independently in a common static random environment on the one-dimensional integer lattice. A two-level fluctuation picture appears. On the central limit scale the quenched mean of the current process converges to a Brownian motion. On a smaller scale the current process centered at its quenched mean converges to a mixture of Gaussian processes. These Gaussian processes are similar to those arising from classical random walks, but the environment makes itself felt through an additional Brownian random shift in the spatial argument of the limiting current process.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/10-AOP537 the Annals of Probability (http://www.imstat.org/aop/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Large deviation rate functions for the partition function in a log-gamma distributed random potential

We study right tail large deviations of the logarithm of the partition function for directed lattice paths in i.i.d. random potentials. The main purpose is the derivation of explicit formulas for the $1+1$-dimensional exactly solvable case with log-gamma distributed random weights. Along the way we establish some regularity results for this rate function for general distributions in arbitrary dimensions.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/12-AOP768 the Annals of Probability (http://www.imstat.org/aop/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Quenched invariance principle for multidimensional ballistic random walk in a random environment with a forbidden direction

We consider a ballistic random walk in an i.i.d. random environment that does not allow retreating in a certain fixed direction. We prove an invariance principle (functional central limit theorem) under almost every fixed environment. The assumptions are nonnestling, at least two spatial dimensions, and a $2+\epsilon$ moment for the step of the walk uniformly in the environment. The main point behind the invariance principle is that the quenched mean of the walk behaves subdiffusively.Comment: Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/009117906000000610 in the Annals of Probability (http://www.imstat.org/aop/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Geometric RSK correspondence, Whittaker functions and symmetrized random polymers

We show that the geometric lifting of the RSK correspondence introduced by A.N. Kirillov (2001) is volume preserving with respect to a natural product measure on its domain, and that the integrand in Givental's integral formula for GL(n,R)-Whittaker functions arises naturally in this context. Apart from providing further evidence that Whittaker functions are the natural analogue of Schur polynomials in this setting, our results also provide a new `combinatorial' framework for the study of random polymers. When the input matrix consists of random inverse gamma distributed weights, the probability distribution of a polymer partition function constructed from these weights can be written down explicitly in terms of Whittaker functions. Next we restrict the geometric RSK mapping to symmetric matrices and show that the volume preserving property continues to hold. We determine the probability law of the polymer partition function with inverse gamma weights that are constrained to be symmetric about the main diagonal, with an additional factor on the main diagonal. The third combinatorial mapping studied is a variant of the geometric RSK mapping for triangular arrays, which is again showed to be volume preserving. This leads to a formula for the probability distribution of a polymer model whose paths are constrained to stay below the diagonal. We also show that the analogues of the Cauchy-Littlewood identity in the setting of this paper are equivalent to a collection of Whittaker integral identities conjectured by Bump (1989) and Bump and Friedberg (1990) and proved by Stade (2001, 2002). Our approach leads to new `combinatorial' proofs and generalizations of these identities, with some restrictions on the parameters.Comment: v2: significantly extended versio

The strict-weak lattice polymer

We introduce the strict-weak polymer model, and show the KPZ universality of the free energy fluctuation of this model for a certain range of parameters. Our proof relies on the observation that the discrete time geometric q-TASEP model, studied earlier by A. Borodin and I. Corwin, scales to this polymer model in the limit q->1. This allows us to exploit the exact results for geometric q-TASEP to derive a Fredholm determinant formula for the strict-weak polymer, and in turn perform rigorous asymptotic analysis to show KPZ scaling and GUE Tracy-Widom limit for the free energy fluctuations. We also derive moments formulae for the polymer partition function directly by Bethe ansatz, and identify the limit of the free energy using a stationary version of the polymer model.Comment: 23 pages, 4 figure