LA Probability Forum

UCLA, Math Sciences, Rm 6627

It is not known (and even physicists disagree) whether first passage percolation (FPP) on $\ZZ^d$ has an upper critical dimension $d_c$, such that the fluctuation exponent $\chi=0$ in dimensions $d>d_c$. In part to facilitate study of this question, we may nonetheless try to understand properties of FPP in such dimensions should they exist, in particular how they should differ from $d<d_c$.  We show that at least one of three fundamental properties of FPP known or believed to hold when $\chi>0$ must be false if $\chi=0$.  A particular one of the three is most plausible to fail, and we explore the consequences if it is indeed false.  These consequences support the idea that when $\chi=0$, passage times are ``local'' in the sense that the passage time from $x$ to $y$ is primarily determined by the configuration near $x$ and $y$.  Such locality is manifested by certain ``disc--to--disc'' passage times, between discs in parallel hyperplanes, being typically much faster than the fastest mean passage time between points in the two discs.