Chemical distance for the half-orthant model

Abstract

The half-orthant model is a partially oriented model of a random medium involving a parameter $p\in [0,1]$, for which there is a critical value $p_c(d)$ (depending on the dimension $d$) below which every point is reachable from the origin. We prove a limit theorem for the graph-distance (or "chemical distance") for this model when $p<p_c(2)$, and also when $1-p$ is larger than the critical parameter for site percolation in $\mathbb{Z}^d$. The proof involves an application of the subadditive ergodic theorem. Novel arguments herein include the method of proving that the expected number of steps to reach any given point is finite, as well as an argument that is used to show that the shape is "non-trivial" in certain directions.