High-Dimensional Lipschitz Functions are Typically Flat

A homomorphism height function on the $d$-dimensional torus $\mathbb{Z}_n^d$ is a function taking integer values on the vertices of the torus with consecutive integers assigned to adjacent vertices. A Lipschitz height function is defined similarly but may also take equal values on adjacent vertices. In each model, we consider the uniform distribution over such functions, subject to boundary conditions. We prove that in high dimensions, with zero boundary values, a typical function is very flat, having bounded variance at any fixed vertex and taking at most $C(\log n)^{1/d}$ values with high probability. Our results extend to any dimension $d\ge 2$, if $\mathbb{Z}_n^d$ is replaced by an enhanced version of it, the torus $\mathbb{Z}_n^d\times\mathbb{Z}_2^{d_0}$ for some fixed $d_0$. This establishes one side of a conjectured roughening transition in $2$ dimensions. The full transition is established for a class of tori with non-equal side lengths. We also find that when $d$ is taken to infinity while $n$ remains fixed, a typical function takes at most $r$ values with high probability, where $r=5$ for the homomorphism model and $r=4$ for the Lipschitz model. Suitable generalizations are obtained when $n$ grows with $d$. Our results apply also to the related model of uniform 3-coloring and establish, for certain boundary conditions, that a uniformly sampled proper 3-coloring of $\mathbb{Z}_n^d$ will be nearly constant on either the even or odd sub-lattice. Our proofs are based on a combinatorial transformation and on a careful analysis of the properties of a class of cutsets which we term odd cutsets. For the Lipschitz model, our results rely also on a bijection of Yadin. This work generalizes results of Galvin and Kahn, refutes a conjecture of Benjamini, Yadin and Yehudayoff and answers a question of Benjamini, H\"aggstr\"om and Mossel.Comment: 63 pages, 5 figures (containing 10 images). Improved introduction and layout. Minor correction

On rough isometries of Poisson processes on the line

Intuitively, two metric spaces are rough isometric (or quasi-isometric) if their large-scale metric structure is the same, ignoring fine details. This concept has proven fundamental in the geometric study of groups. Ab\'{e}rt, and later Szegedy and Benjamini, have posed several probabilistic questions concerning this concept. In this article, we consider one of the simplest of these: are two independent Poisson point processes on the line rough isometric almost surely? Szegedy conjectured that the answer is positive. Benjamini proposed to consider a quantitative version which roughly states the following: given two independent percolations on $\mathbb {N}$, for which constants are the first $n$ points of the first percolation rough isometric to an initial segment of the second, with the first point mapping to the first point and with probability uniformly bounded from below? We prove that the original question is equivalent to proving that absolute constants are possible in this quantitative version. We then make some progress toward the conjecture by showing that constants of order $\sqrt{\log n}$ suffice in the quantitative version. This is the first result to improve upon the trivial construction which has constants of order $\log n$. Furthermore, the rough isometry we construct is (weakly) monotone and we include a discussion of monotone rough isometries, their properties and an interesting lattice structure inherent in them.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/09-AAP624 the Annals of Applied Probability (http://www.imstat.org/aap/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Shortest Path in a Polygon using Sublinear Space

\renewcommand{\Re}{{\rm I\!\hspace{-0.025em} R}} \newcommand{\SetX}{\mathsf{X}} \newcommand{\VorX}[1]{\mathcal{V} \pth{#1}} \newcommand{\Polygon}{\mathsf{P}} \newcommand{\Space}{\overline{\mathsf{m}}} \newcommand{\pth}[2][\!]{#1\left({#2}\right)} We resolve an open problem due to Tetsuo Asano, showing how to compute the shortest path in a polygon, given in a read only memory, using sublinear space and subquadratic time. Specifically, given a simple polygon \Polygon with $n$ vertices in a read only memory, and additional working memory of size \Space, the new algorithm computes the shortest path (in \Polygon) in O( n^2 /\, \Space ) expected time. This requires several new tools, which we believe to be of independent interest