The divergence of fluctuations for the shape on first passage percolation

Yu Zhang

Published 2005-01-06Version 1

Consider the first passage percolation model on ${\bf Z}^d$ for $d\geq 2$. In this model we assign independently to each edge the value zero with probability $p$ and the value one with probability $1-p$. We denote by $T({\bf 0}, v)$ the passage time from the origin to $v$ for $v\in {\bf R}^d$ and $$B(t)=\{v\in {\bf R}^d: T({\bf 0}, v)\leq t\}{and} G(t)=\{v\in {\bf R}^d: ET({\bf 0}, v)\leq t\}.$$ It is well known that if $p < p_c$, there exists a compact shape $B_d\subset {\bf R}^d$ such that for all $\epsilon >0$ $$t B_d(1-\epsilon) \subset {B(t)} \subset tB_d(1+\epsilon){and} G(t)(1-{\epsilon}) \subset {B(t)} \subset G(t)(1+{\epsilon}) {eventually w.p.1.}$$ We denote the fluctuations of $B(t)$ from $tB_d$ and $G(t)$ by &&F(B(t), tB_d)=\inf \{l:tB_d(1-{l\over t})\subset B(t)\subset tB_d(1+{l\over t})\} && F(B(t), G(t))=\inf\{l:G(t)(1-{l\over t})\subset B(t)\subset G(t)(1+{l\over t})\}. The means of the fluctuations $E[F(B(t), tB_d]$ and $E[F(B(t), G(t))]$ have been conjectured ranging from divergence to non-divergence for large $d\geq 2$ by physicists. In this paper, we show that for all $d\geq 2$ with a high probability, the fluctuations $F(B(t), G(t))$ and $F(B(t), tB_d)$ diverge with a rate of at least $C \log t$ for some constant $C$. The proof of this argument depends on the linearity between the number of pivotal edges of all minimizing paths and the paths themselves. This linearity is also independently interesting.