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Recurrence of the Simple Random Walk Path
Probability| Speaker: | Ori Gurel-Gurevich, Microsoft Research |
| Location: | 2112 MSB |
| Start time: | Wed, Nov 26 2008, 4:10PM |
Description
A simple random walk (SRW) on a graph is a Markov chain whose state space
is the vertex set and the next state distribution is uniform among the
neighbors of the current state. A graph is called recurrent if a SRW
on it returns to the starting vertex with probability 1, and called
transient otherwise. The path of a walk on a graph is simply the set of
edges this walk has traversed.
Our main result is that the path of a SRW on any graph is a recurrent
graph. The proof uses the electrical network interpretation of random
walks.
We will give a sketch of the proof, including the necessary background,
and discuss related questions, conjectures and results.
Based on joint works with Itai Benjamini, Russell Lyons and Oded Schramm.