Choosing a Spanning Tree for the Integer Lattice Uniformly

Robin Pemantle

Published 2004-04-02Version 1

Consider the nearest neighbor graph for the integer lattice Z^d in d dimensions. For a large finite piece of it, consider choosing a spanning tree for that piece uniformly among all possible subgraphs that are spanning trees. As the piece gets larger, this approaches a limiting measure on the set of spanning graphs for Z^d. This is shown to be a tree if and only if d=<4. In this case, the tree has only one topological end, i.e. there are no doubly infinite paths. When d>=5 the spanning forest has infinitely many components almost surely, with each component having one or two topological ends.