Random walks is a topic at the crossroads of probability, ergodic theory, potential theory, harmonic analysis, geometry, and graph theory. Its roots can be traced back to the famous article by Pólya in 1921, which characterizes the recurrence of random walks on $\mathbb{Z}^{d}$ in terms of the dimension $d$. When random walks take place on a group, or more generally on a homogeneous space, it provides an even richer framework for study. From a probabilistic point of view, this additional structure serves as an extra tool, facilitating the study of the behaviour of the random walk on the underlying space. Regarding groups and their actions, random walks offer a means to explore generic or non-generic parts of groups and, at times, even to demonstrate intrinsic geometric properties, as is clearly shown by Kesten's amenability criterion (1959). This is an introductory course on the topic. Emphasis will be given on the interplay between probability and the structure of the group. The course will also provide insights into current research questions. Here is an outline of each session :
(1) Equivalent of Pólya's criterion for random walks on groups and rigidity theorems : does walking randomly on a given group in two different ways affect the recurrence of the walks ?
(2) Kesten's probabilistic criterion of the amenability of a finitely generated group ; defined in this course in terms of isoperimetric profile. The tools in 1) and 2) are essentially coming from analysis on groups.
(3) Tools coming from subadditivity to study the behaviour of a random walk on a group (drift, entropy and expansion of the random walk, etc.)[-]

Random walks is a topic at the crossroads of probability, ergodic theory, potential theory, harmonic analysis, geometry, and graph theory. Its roots can be traced back to the famous article by Pólya in 1921, which characterizes the recurrence of random walks on $\mathbb{Z}^{d}$ in terms of the dimension $d$. When random walks take place on a group, or more generally on a homogeneous space, it provides an even richer framework for study. From a probabilistic point of view, this additional structure serves as an extra tool, facilitating the study of the behaviour of the random walk on the underlying space. Regarding groups and their actions, random walks offer a means to explore generic or non-generic parts of groups and, at times, even to demonstrate intrinsic geometric properties, as is clearly shown by Kesten's amenability criterion (1959). This is an introductory course on the topic. Emphasis will be given on the interplay between probability and the structure of the group. The course will also provide insights into current research questions. Here is an outline of each session :
(1) Equivalent of Pólya's criterion for random walks on groups and rigidity theorems : does walking randomly on a given group in two different ways affect the recurrence of the walks ?
(2) Kesten's probabilistic criterion of the amenability of a finitely generated group ; defined in this course in terms of isoperimetric profile. The tools in 1) and 2) are essentially coming from analysis on groups.
(3) Tools coming from subadditivity to study the behaviour of a random walk on a group (drift, entropy and expansion of the random walk, etc.)[-]

Random walks is a topic at the crossroads of probability, ergodic theory, potential theory, harmonic analysis, geometry, and graph theory. Its roots can be traced back to the famous article by Pólya in 1921, which characterizes the recurrence of random walks on $\mathbb{Z}^{d}$ in terms of the dimension $d$. When random walks take place on a group, or more generally on a homogeneous space, it provides an even richer framework for study. From a probabilistic point of view, this additional structure serves as an extra tool, facilitating the study of the behaviour of the random walk on the underlying space. Regarding groups and their actions, random walks offer a means to explore generic or non-generic parts of groups and, at times, even to demonstrate intrinsic geometric properties, as is clearly shown by Kesten's amenability criterion (1959). This is an introductory course on the topic. Emphasis will be given on the interplay between probability and the structure of the group. The course will also provide insights into current research questions. Here is an outline of each session :
(1) Equivalent of Pólya's criterion for random walks on groups and rigidity theorems : does walking randomly on a given group in two different ways affect the recurrence of the walks ?
(2) Kesten's probabilistic criterion of the amenability of a finitely generated group ; defined in this course in terms of isoperimetric profile. The tools in 1) and 2) are essentially coming from analysis on groups.
(3) Tools coming from subadditivity to study the behaviour of a random walk on a group (drift, entropy and expansion of the random walk, etc.)[-]

A finite ergodic Markov chain exhibits cutoff if its distance to equilibrium remains close to its initial value over a certain number of iterations and then abruptly drops to near 0 on a much shorter time scale. Originally discovered in the context of card shuffling (Aldous-Diaconis, 1986), this remarkable phenomenon is now rigorously established for many reversible chains. Here we consider the non-reversible case of random walks on sparse directed graphs, for which even the equilibrium measure is far from being understood. We work under the configuration model, allowing both the in-degrees and the out-degrees to be freely specified. We establish the cutoff phenomenon, determine its precise window and prove that the cutoff profile approaches a universal shape. We also provide a detailed description of the equilibrium measure.[-]

This talk is based on a work jointly with Timothy Budd (Copenhagen), Nicolas Curien (Orsay) and Igor Kortchemski (Ecole Polytechnique).
Consider a self-similar Markov process $X$ on $[0,\infty)$ which converges at infinity a.s. We interpret $X(t)$ as the size of a typical cell at time $t$, and each negative jump as a birth event. More precisely, if ${\Delta}X(s) = -y < 0$, then $s$ is the birth at time of a daughter cell with size $y$ which then evolves independently and according to the same dynamics. In turn, daughter cells give birth to granddaughter cells each time they make a negative jump, and so on.
The genealogical structure of the cell population can be described in terms of a branching random walk, and this gives rise to remarkable martingales. We analyze traces of these mar- tingales in physical time, and point at some applications for self-similar growth-fragmentation processes and for planar random maps.[-]

The talk is about a class of systems of 2d statistical mechanics, such as random tilings, noncolliding walks, log-gases and random matrix-type distributions. Specific members in this class are integrable, which means that available exact formulas allow delicate asymptotic analysis leading to the Gaussian Free Field, sine-process, Tracy-Widom distributions. Extending the results beyond the integrable cases is challenging. I will speak about a recent progress in this direction: about universal local limit theorems for a class of lozenge and domino tilings, noncolliding random walks; and about GFF-type asymptotic theorems for global fluctuations in these systems and in discrete beta log–gases.[-]

Complete wetting in the context of the low temperature two-dimensional Ising model is characterized by creation of a mesoscopic size layer of the "-" phase above an active substrate. Adding a small positive magnetic field h makes "-"-phase unstable, and the layer becomes only microscopically thick. Critical prewetting corresponds to a continuous divergence of this layer as h tends to zero. There is a conjectured 1/3 (diffusive) scaling leading to Ferrari-Spohn diffusions. Rigorous results were established for polymer models of random and self-avoiding walks under vanishing area tilts.
A similar 1/3-scaling is conjectured to hold for top level lines of low temperature SOS-type interfaces in three dimensions. In the latter case, the effective local structure is that of ordered walks, again under area tilts. The conjectured scaling limits (rigorously established in the random walk context) are ordered diffusions driven by Airy Slatter determinants.
Based on joint walks with Senya Shlosman, Yvan Velenik and Vitali Wachtel.[-]

We study the behaviour of random walk on dynamical percolation. In this model, the edges of a graph are either open or closed and refresh their status at rate $\mu$, while at the same time a random walker moves on $G$ at rate 1, but only along edges which are open. On the d-dimensional torus with side length $n$, when the bond parameter is subcritical, the mixing times for both the full system and the random walker were determined by Peres, Stauffer and Steif. I will talk about the supercritical case, which was left open, but can be analysed using evolving sets.

Joint work with Y. Peres and J. Steif.[-]

In the first half of the talk, I will survey results and open problems on transience of self-interacting martingales. In particular, I will describe joint works with S. Popov, P. Sousi, R. Eldan and F. Nazarov on the tradeoff between the ambient dimension and the number of different step distributions needed to obtain a recurrent process. In the second, unrelated, half of the talk, I will present joint work with Tom Hutchcroft, showing that the component structure of the uniform spanning forest in $\mathbb{Z}^d$ changes every dimension for $d > 8$. This sharpens an earlier result of Benjamini, Kesten, Schramm and the speaker (Annals Math 2004), where we established a phase transition every four dimensions. The proofs are based on a the connection to loop-erased random walks.[-]