A local limit theorem for random walks in balanced environments

Mikko Stenlund

Published 2012-06-22, updated 2013-03-06Version 2

Central limit theorems for random walks in quenched random environments have attracted plenty of attention in the past years. More recently still, finer local limit theorems -- yielding a Gaussian density multiplied by a highly oscillatory modulating factor -- for such models have been obtained. In the one-dimensional nearest-neighbor case with i.i.d. transition probabilities, local limits of uniformly elliptic ballistic walks are now well understood. We complete the picture by proving a similar result for the only recurrent case, namely the balanced one, in which such a walk is diffusive. The method of proof is, out of necessity, entirely different from the ballistic case.