Critical Behavior for Maximal Flows on the Cubic Lattice

AbstractLet F0 and Fm be the top and bottom faces of the box [0, k]×[0, l]×[0, m] in Z3. To each edge e in the box, we assign an i.i.d. nonnegative random variable t(e) representing the flow capacity of e. Denote by Φk, l, m the maximal flow from F0 to Fm in the box. Let pc denote the critical value for bond percolation on Z3. It is known that Φk, l, m is asymptotically proportional to the area of F0 as m, k, l→∞, when the probability that t(e)>0 exceeds pc, but is of lower order if the probability is strictly less than pc. Here we consider the critical case where the probability that t(e)>0 is exactly equal to pc, and prove that $$\mathop {{\text{lim}}}\limits_{k,l,m \to \infty } \frac{1}{{kl}}\Phi _{k,l,m} = 0{\text{ a}}{\text{.s and in }}L_1 $$ The limiting behavior of related to surfaces on Z3 are also considered in this paper.