For an $N$-step self-avoiding walk on the hypercubic lattice ${\bf Z}^d$, we prove that the mean-square end-to-end distance is at least $N^{4/(3d)}$ times a constant. This implies that the associated critical exponent $\nu$ is at least $2/(3d)$, assuming that $\nu$ exists.

Inspired by Aldous' conjecture for the spectral gap of the interchange process and its recent resolution by Caputo, Liggett, and Richthammer, we define an associated order $\prec$ on the irreducible representations of $S_n$. Aldous' conjecture is equivalent to certain representations being comparable in this order, and hence determining the ``Aldous order'' completely is a generalized question. We show a few additional entries for this order.

We show that the Schrödinger equation is a lift of Newton's third law of motion $\nabla^\mathcal W_{\dot \mu} \dot \mu = -\nabla^\mathcal W F(\mu)$ on the space of probability measures, where derivatives are taken with respect to the Wasserstein Riemannian metric. Here the potential $\mu \to F(\mu)$ is the sum of the total classical potential energy $\langle V,\mu\rangle$ of the extended system and its Fisher information $ \frac {\hbar^2} 8 \int |\nabla \ln \mu |^2 \,d\mu$. The precise relation is established via a well-known (Madelung) transform which is shown to be a symplectic submersion of the standard symplectic structure of complex valued functions into the canonical symplectic space over the Wasserstein space. All computations are conducted in the framework of Otto's formal Riemannian calculus for optimal transportation of probability measures.

The groups of (linear) similarity and coincidence isometries of certain modules $\varGamma$ in $d$-dimensional Euclidean space, which naturally occur in quasicrystallography, are considered. It is shown that the structure of the factor group of similarity modulo coincidence isometries is the direct sum of cyclic groups of prime power orders that divide $d$. In particular, if the dimension $d$ is a prime number $p$, the factor group is an elementary abelian $p$-group. This generalizes previous results obtained for lattices to situations relevant in quasicrystallography.

Let $R_n(\alpha)$ be the $n!\times n!$ matrix whose matrix elements $[R_n(\alpha)]_{\sigma\rho}$, with $\sigma$ and $\rho$ in the symmetric group $\sn$, are $\alpha^{\ell(\sigma\rho^{-1})}$ with $0<\alpha<1$, where $\ell(\pi)$ denotes the number of cycles in $\pi\in \sn$. We give the spectrum of $R_n$ and show that the ratio of the largest eigenvalue $\lambda_0$ to the second largest one (in absolute value) increases as a positive power of $n$ as $n\rightarrow \infty$.

In Bernoulli site percolation on Penrose tilings there are two natural definitions of the critical probability. This paper shows that they are equal on almost all Penrose tilings. It also shows that for almost all Penrose tilings the number of infinite clusters is almost surely~0 or~1. The results generalize to percolation on a large class of aperiodic tilings in arbitrary dimension, to percolation on ergodic subgraphs of $\hbox{\Bbbvii Z}^d$, and to other percolation processes, including Bernoulli bond percolation.

This article discusses our recent proof that above eight dimensions the scaling limit of sufficiently spread-out lattice trees is the variant of super-Brownian motion called {\it integrated super-Brownian excursion\/} ($\ISE$), as conjectured by Aldous. The same is true for nearest-neighbour lattice trees in sufficiently high dimensions. The proof, whose details will appear elsewhere, uses the lace expansion. Here, a related but simpler analysis is applied to show that the scaling limit of a mean-field theory is $\ISE$, in all dimensions. A connection is drawn between $\ISE$ and certain generating functions and critical exponents, which may be useful for the study of high-dimensional percolation models at the critical point.