The scaling limit of random walk and the intrinsic metric on planar critical percolation

Abstract

We consider critical site percolation ($p=p_c=1/2$) on the triangular lattice $\mathbf{T}$ in two dimensions. We show that the simple random walk on the clusters of open vertices converges in the scaling limit to a continuous diffusion which lives in the gasket of a conformal loop ensemble with parameter $\kappa = 6$ $\big(\mathrm{CLE}_6\big)$, the so-called $\mathrm{CLE}_6$ Brownian motion. We also show that the intrinsic (i.e., chemical distance) metric converges in the scaling limit to the geodesic $\mathrm{CLE}_6$ metric. As a consequence, we deduce the existence of the chemical distance exponent, the resistance exponent, and the spectral dimension of the critical percolation clusters. Moreover, we show that the exponents satisfy the Einstein relations.