Russo-Seymour-Welsh theorem

At critical planar percolation, the probability of an open crossing of a rectangle of any fixed aspect ratio stays bounded away from zero and one uniformly over its scale.

For independent bond percolation on the square lattice, a positive uniform lower bound for square crossings implies a positive uniform lower bound for rectangle crossings of every fixed aspect ratio $\rho >1$. The RSW reflection extension lemma first extends a square to aspect ratio $3/2$. Overlapping rectangles and transverse overlap-square crossings then glue using the Harris-FKG inequality. The required constant depends on $\delta$ and $\rho$, not on scale. At a self-dual parameter, dual crossings also give a uniform upper bound below one.

For independent bond percolation on the square lattice at $p=1/2$, square crossing probabilities bounded below by self-duality extend to a uniform positive bound for rectangles of aspect ratio $3/2$. Expose an extremal vertical square crossing, reflect its geometry, and attach it to an exterior side through an unexposed independent region. Reflection symmetry bounds the attachment probability below. Two attachments and a horizontal square crossing join by the Harris-FKG inequality. Overlapping rectangles and transverse overlap-square crossings then give all fixed aspect ratios. Reflecting a geometrical graph path does not require its reflected edges to be open.

In a rectangle $[0,m]\times [0,2n]$, $m\ge n$, let $X$ require an open vertical crossing of the corner square $[0,n{]}^2$ attached to the rectangle's right side. Explore the leftmost vertical crossing of the square without inspecting edges to its right. Reflect its geometry in the line $y=n$, obtaining a deterministic separator. Every horizontal rectangle crossing reaches this separator from the right; reflection divides these possible attachments into two equally probable choices, so the lower-half attachment has probability at least half the horizontal crossing probability. The required edges remain unexposed and independent of the explored crossing. Averaging proves the estimate. Reflected geometry need not be open.

The one-arm probability $\pi (r)$ is the probability that a specified vertex has an open path to distance $r$.

For independent bond percolation on the cubic lattice, define ${\tau }_p(x,y)={\mathbb{P}}_p(x\leftrightarrow y)$ and $g_n={\mathbb{P}}_p(0\leftrightarrow \partial {\Lambda }_n)$, with $g_0=1$. Split an open self-avoiding walk at its first radius-$m$ boundary vertex $y$. The remaining segment reaches distance at least $n-m$ from $y$, using disjoint edges. The BK inequality, translation invariance and the union bound yield the displayed estimate. Keeping the individual connection weights can be stronger than replacing their sum by $|\partial {\Lambda }_m|g_m$.

At $p=1/2$ for independent bond percolation on the square lattice, there exist $C<\infty$ and $\alpha >0$ with ${\mathbb{P}}_{1/2}(0\leftrightarrow \partial [-n,n{]}^2)\le C{n}^{-\alpha }$. The Russo-Seymour-Welsh theorem and the Harris-FKG inequality give a uniform positive probability of a closed dual graph cycle around each geometrically spaced square ring. The independent annular barriers for percolation give the polynomial bound and imply zero critical percolation probability. This does not determine the exact critical exponent.

Closed dual graph cycles in disjoint square rings depend on disjoint primal edge sets. In independent bond percolation their barrier events are independent. If each event has probability at least $\delta >0$, an open graph path from the origin across $k$ rings has probability at most $(1-\delta {)}^k$. A geometric sequence of radii turns this estimate into the polynomial critical one-arm upper bound.

For bond percolation on the square lattice, put $g_n={\mathbb{P}}_p(0\leftrightarrow \partial [-n,n{]}^2)$. Splitting an open self-avoiding walk at its first visit to the radius-$m$ boundary gives disjoint certificates for reaching a boundary graph vertex and then reaching radius $n$ about that graph vertex. The Van den Berg-Kesten inequality and the union bound give $g_{m+n}\le 8m{g}_m{g}_n$ for positive $m,n$. With $g_0=1$ and $|\partial {\Lambda }_0|=1$, the boundary-cardinality form holds for zero indices as well.

For bond percolation on the square lattice, the one-arm probability $g_n={\mathbb{P}}_p(0\leftrightarrow \partial [-n,n{]}^2)$ has a root limit of a sequence $\gamma (p)\in [p,1]$. The BK boundary-splitting estimate implies that $32n^2{g}_n$ is submultiplicative for positive integers. Applying the Fekete lemma to its logarithm proves existence when $p>0$; at $p=0$ the rate is zero. The same rate is the root limit of the percolation two-point connection probability along a coordinate axis, by the reflection lower bound for two-point percolation.

For independent bond percolation of density $0<p<1$ on the cubic lattice in dimension $d\ge 2$, let ${\beta }_n$ be the one-arm probability for reaching maximum-norm distance $n$. The weighted BK boundary-splitting estimate gives ${\beta }_{m+n}\le |\partial {\Lambda }_n|{\beta }_m{\beta }_n$. Since the logarithm of this boundary size is $o(n)$, the asymmetrically almost-subadditive sequence argument applies to $\log {\beta }_n$. The rate exists and lies in $[0,-\log p]$; positive rate gives exponential decay.

The Russo-Seymour-Welsh theorem and the Harris-FKG inequality imply $\pi (2r)\ge c\pi (r)$ for a scale-independent constant $c>0$.

RSW rectangle crossings and positive association join two separated one-arm events with probability bounded below uniformly over scale.