Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 30 3 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
For the coordinatewise lattice operations and , Holley's condition isThis sufficient condition implies by the Holley inequality. It is often stated first for strictly positive probability weights, as will hold for the random-cluster application, but the displayed condition is also sufficient for nonnegative weights.
For clarity about the zero-weight case, apply the four functions theorem to an increasing event , with the first two functions and , and the last two and . If and , then and . The pointwise hypothesis is exactly the displayed cross-lattice inequality. Its summed conclusion giveswhich rearranges to . This establishes the same statement without a positivity-of-support assumption.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 30 3 c Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
Identify a configuration with its set of open edges. Let count the connected components of a graph on the full graph vertex set, including isolated graph vertices. The random-cluster measure isFor and finite all its weights are positive. We compare , taking and .
The key fact is supermodularity of graph component count:To prove it, orient the graph edges arbitrarily and let be the real span of their incidence vectors for edges in . Its dimension of a vector space is : on each connected component of a graph these vectors span the vectors whose coordinates sum to zero. Since and , the dimension formula for a sum of subspaces giveswhich is exactly the component-count inequality.
Put and . The preceding inequality gives . In the ratio of the two sides of Holley's condition, the normalization constants and Bernoulli edge factors cancel, because . The ratio is thereforeBy the Holley inequality, stochastically dominates . Thus increasing cluster weight suppresses every increasing event:The random-cluster single-edge conditional probability confirms the mechanism: it is when the endpoints are already connected, and otherwise. Larger favours configurations with more separate components. The condition enters explicitly in the last factor .