We study asymptotic behaviors of the free energy for the directed polymer in random environment. The polymer is allowed to make unbounded jumps and the environment is given by the Bernoulli variables. We first establish the existence and continuity including the negative infinity value of the coupling constant β. Our proof of existence at β=−∞ differs from existing ones in that it avoids the direct use of subadditivity. Secondly, we identify the asymptotics of the free energy at β=−∞ in the limit of the success probability of the Bernoulli variables tending to one. It is described by using the so-called time constant of a certain directed first passage percolation. Our proof relies on a certain continuity property of the time constant, which is of independent interest.
The main part of Theorem is the continuity of @math around @math , which is the zero temperature asymptotic result for the free energy. This type of problems does not seem to attract much interest in the discrete time setting since in some cases the answers are simple. For instance, consider the (nearest-neighbor) simple random walk model with an i.i.d. random environment with @math . Then it is easy to see that as @math , the free energy is asymptotic to @math times the time constant of the directed last passage percolation. However, if @math is Bernoulli distributed and we send @math , the situation is not so simple. As we mentioned at the beginning, the existence of @math proved in @cite_19 is already highly nontrivial and the continuity as @math remains an open question at the moment.
@cite_19
1508206940
We study compositions of the integer @math in which the first part, successive differences, and the last part are constrained to lie in prescribed sets @math , respectively. A simple condition on @math guarantees that the generating function @math has only a simple pole on its circle of convergence and this at @math , a function independent of @math and @math . Thus the number of compositions is asymptotic to @math for a suitable constant @math . We prove a multivariate central and local limit theorem and apply it to various statistics of random locally restricted compositions of @math , such as number of parts, numbers of parts of given sizes, and number of rises. The first and last parts are shown to have limiting distributions and to be asymptotically independent. If @math has only finitely many positive elements @math , or finitely many negative elements @math , then the largest part and number of distinct part sizes are almost surely @math . On the other hand, when both @math and @math have a positive asymptotic lower "local log-density", we prove that the largest part and number of distinct part sizes are almost surely @math , and we give sufficient conditions for the largest part to be almost surely asymptotic to @math .