Student Probability Seminar

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Critical and Near-Critical Percolation in Two Dimensions (And a Little Bit of SLE(6))

Speaker: Pierre Nolin

Location: Warren Weaver Hall 202

Date: Friday, October 16, 2009, 3 p.m.

Synopsis:

Percolation is probably one of the simplest models of a random medium, but it nonetheless features the typical properties of most statistical mechanics systems, such as the existence of a phase transition and of critical exponents. After a general overview of this model, we will present techniques which were developed to describe two-dimensional percolation near its phase transition (mostly on the triangular lattice). This uses Smirnov's proof of conformal invariance in the scaling limit at criticality, results on the so-called Schramm-Loewner Evolution (SLE) obtained by Lawler, Schramm and Werner, and also Kesten's scaling relations that relate the near-critical regime to the critical regime itself.