On the number and size of holes in the growing ball of first-passage percolation

Abstract:

First-passage percolation is a random growth model defined on $\mathbb {Z}^d$ using i.i.d. nonnegative weights $(\tau _e)$ on the edges. Letting $T(x,y)$ be the distance between vertices $x$ and $y$ induced by the weights, we study the random ball of radius $t$ centered at the origin, $\mathbf {B}(t) = \{x \in \mathbb {Z}^d : T(0,x) \leq t\}$. It is known that for all such $\tau _e$, the number of vertices (volume) of $\mathbf {B}(t)$ is at least order $t^d$, and under mild conditions on $\tau _e$, this volume grows like a deterministic constant times $t^d$. Defining a hole in $\mathbf {B}(t)$ to be a bounded component of the complement $\mathbf {B}(t)^c$, we prove that if $\tau _e$ is not deterministic, then a.s., for all large $t$, $\mathbf {B}(t)$ has at least $ct^{d-1}$ many holes, and the maximal volume of any hole is at least $c\log t$. Conditionally on the (unproved) uniform curvature assumption, we prove that a.s., for all large $t$, the number of holes is at most $(\log t)^C t^{d-1}$, and for $d=2$, no hole in $\mathbf {B}(t)$ has volume larger than $(\log t)^C$. Without curvature, we show that no hole has volume larger than $Ct \log t$.