Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 214 4 c Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
First take . Sample a uniform spanning tree using Wilson's algorithm rooted at , with processed first. The first walk runs from until its first hit of , so its loop erasure is exactly the unique -to- graph path of the resulting tree. Later attachments cannot alter that graph path. This is the uniform-spanning-tree path representation of loop-erased random walk.
Instead root Wilson's algorithm at and process first. The resulting tree still has the same uniform law, while its first attachment has the law of loop-erased random walk from to . A tree's graph path between two fixed graph vertices has the same unoriented edge set in both directions. Pushing the common tree law through this graph path map therefore givesHere means the set of unoriented edges. In fact, reversing the complete graph vertex sequence from the first loop-erased walk has the law of the second, giving reversibility of loop-erased random walk. If and first hitting allows time zero, both graph paths are empty and the equality is immediate.
This is a distributional assertion, not a pathwise identity between chronological loop erasure and reversal. For example, the valid walk trajectory in a graph containing the triangle on and the edges erases forward to . Erasing the reversed trajectory and then reversing the result gives , a different graph path. Wilson's root-independent tree law is what proves the stated equality of probability distributions.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2024 iii Paper 209 4 2 Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
Sample a uniform spanning tree . Rooting Wilson's algorithm at shows that the path in oriented from to has the law of . Rooting the same uniform law at shows that the same undirected path with its orientation reversed has the law of . ConsequentlyThis is reversibility of loop-erased random walk.
Uniform-spanning-tree path representation of loop-erased random walk Created 2026-10-06 Updated 2026-10-07
On a finite connected unweighted graph, the graph path between and in a uniform spanning tree has the law of loop-erased random walk from to . Root Wilson's algorithm at and process first: the first attached graph path is exactly that loop erasure, and later attachments cannot change it. Changing the root to proves reversibility of loop-erased random walk, even though chronological loop erasure does not commute with reversing each individual random-walk trajectory.