On the genealogy of branching random walks and of directed polymers

Abstract

It is well known that the mean field theory of directed polymers in a random medium exhibits replica symmetry breaking with a distribution of overlaps which consists of two delta functions. Here we show that the leading finite size correction to this distribution of overlaps has a universal character which can be computed explicitly. Our results can also be interpreted as genealogical properties of branching Brownian motion or of branching random walks.