Mean-field conditions for percolation on finite graphs

Asaf Nachmias

Published 2007-09-11, updated 2008-11-25Version 2

Let G_n be a sequence of finite transitive graphs with vertex degree d=d(n) and |G_n|=n. Denote by p^t(v,v) the return probability after t steps of the non-backtracking random walk on G_n. We show that if p^t(v,v) has quasi-random properties, then critical bond-percolation on G_n has a scaling window of width n^{-1/3}, as it would on a random graph. A consequence of our theorems is that if G_n is a transitive expander family with girth at least (2/3 + eps) \log_{d-1} n, then the size of the largest component in p-bond-percolation with p={1 +O(n^{-1/3}) \over d-1} is roughly n^{2/3}. In particular, bond-percolation on the celebrated Ramanujan graph constructed by Lubotzky, Phillips and Sarnak has the above scaling window. This provides the first examples of quasi-random graphs behaving like random graphs with respect to critical bond-percolation.