Probability distribution of the sizes of the largest erased loops in loop-erased random walks

Abstract

We have studied the probability distribution of the perimeter and the area of the kth largest erased loop in loop-erased random walks in two dimensions for k=1 to 3. For a random walk of N steps, for large N, the average value of the kth largest perimeter and area scales as N^5/8 and N, respectively. The behavior of the scaled distribution functions is determined for very large and very small arguments. We have used exact enumeration for N ≤20 to determine the probability that no loop of size greater than l is erased. We show that correlations between loops have to be taken into account to describe the average size of the kth largest erased loops. We propose a one-dimensional Levy walk model that takes care of these correlations. The simulations of this simpler model compare very well with the simulations of the original problem.