Large deviation principle for the streams and the maximal flow in first passage percolation

Abstract

We consider the standard first passage percolation model in the rescaled lattice ${\mathbb{Z}}^d$ for $d\ge 2$ and a bounded domain $\Omega$ in ${\mathbb{R}}^d$. We denote by ${\Gamma }^1$ and ${\Gamma }^2$ two disjoint subsets of $\partial \Omega$ representing respectively the source and the sink, i.e., where the water can enter in $\Omega$ and escape from $\Omega$. A maximal stream is a vector measure ${\overrightarrow{\mu }}_n^{max}$ that describes how the maximal amount of fluid can enter through ${\Gamma }^1$ and spreads in $\Omega$. Under some assumptions on $\Omega$ and $G$, we already know a law of large number for ${\overrightarrow{\mu }}_n^{max}$. The sequence $({\overrightarrow{\mu }}_n^{max}{)}_{n\ge 1}$ converges almost surely to the set of solutions of a continuous deterministic problem of maximal stream in an anisotropic network. We aim here to derive a large deviation principle for streams and deduce by contraction principle the existence of a rate function for the upper large deviations of the maximal flow in $\Omega$.