Biased random walk conditioned on survival among Bernoulli obstacles: subcritical phase

Abstract

We consider a discrete time biased random walk conditioned to avoid Bernoulli obstacles on ${\mathbb{Z}}^d$ ($d\ge 2$) up to time $N$. This model is known to undergo a phase transition: for a large bias, the walk is ballistic whereas for a small bias, it is sub-ballistic. We prove that in the sub-ballistic phase, the random walk is contained in a ball of radius $O(N^{1/(d+2)})$, which is the same scale as for the unbiased case. As an intermediate step, we also prove large deviation principles for the endpoint distribution for the unbiased random walk at scales between $N^{1/(d+2)}$ and $o(N^{d/(d+2)})$. These results improve and complement earlier work by Sznitman [Ann. Sci. Ecole Norm. Sup. (4), 28(3):345--370, 371--390, 1995].

34 pages, 3 figures. To appear in Commun. Math. Phys