The Length of an SLE - Monte Carlo Studies

Stochastic Loewner evolution also called Schramm Loewner evolution (abbreviated, SLE) is a rigorous tool in mathematics and statistical physics for generating and studying scale invariant or fractal random curves in two dimensions. The method is based on the older deterministic Loewner evolution introduced by Karl Loewner, who demonstrated that an arbitrary curve not crossing itself can be generated by a real function by means of a conformal transformation. In 2000 Oded Schra...

This article is meant to serve as a guide to recent developments in the study of the scaling limit of critical models. These new developments were made possible through the definition of the Stochastic Loewner Evolution (SLE) by Oded Schramm. This article opens with a discussion of Loewner's method, explaining how this method can be used to describe families of random curves. Then we define SLE and discuss some of its properties. We also explain how the connection can be made...

The scaling limit of the two-dimensional self-avoiding walk (SAW) is believed to be given by the Schramm-Loewner evolution (SLE) with the parameter kappa equal to 8/3. The scaling limit of the SAW has a natural parameterization and SLE has a standard parameterization using the half-plane capacity. These two parameterizations do not correspond with one another. To make the scaling limit of the SAW and SLE agree as parameterized curves, we must reparameterize one of them. We pr...

In the last few years, new insights have permitted unexpected progress in the study of fractal shapes in two dimensions. A new approach, called Schramm-Loewner evolution, or SLE, has arisen through analytic function theory and probability theory, and given a new way of calculating fractal shapes in critical phenomena, the theory of random walks, and of percolation. We present a non-technical discussion of this development aimed to attract the attention of condensed matter com...

We numerically show that the statistical properties of the shortest path on critical percolation clusters are consistent with the ones predicted for Schramm-Loewner evolution (SLE) curves for $\kappa=1.04\pm0.02$. The shortest path results from a global optimization process. To identify it, one needs to explore an entire area. Establishing a relation with SLE permits to generate curves statistically equivalent to the shortest path from a Brownian motion. We numerically analyz...

Schramm-Loewner Evolution (SLE) is a stochastic process that helps classify critical statistical models using one real parameter $\kappa$. Numerical study of SLE often involves curves that start and end on the real axis. To reduce numerical errors in studying the critical curves which start from the real axis and end on it, we have used hydrodynamically normalized SLE($\kappa,\rho$) which is a stochastic differential equation that is hypothesized to govern such curves. In thi...

The conjecture that the scaling limit of the two-dimensional self-avoiding walk (SAW) in a half plane is given by the stochastic Loewner evolution (SLE) with $\kappa=8/3$ leads to explicit predictions about the SAW. A remarkable feature of these predictions is that they yield not just critical exponents, but probability distributions for certain random variables associated with the self-avoiding walk. We test two of these predictions with Monte Carlo simulations and find exce...

The Schramm-Loewner evolution (SLE_\kappa) is a candidate for the scaling limit of random curves arising in two-dimensional critical phenomena. When \kappa < 8, an instance of SLE_\kappa is a random planar curve with almost sure Hausdorff dimension d = 1 + \kappa/8 < 2. This curve is conventionally parametrized by its half plane capacity, rather than by any measure of its d-dimensional volume. For \kappa < 8, we use a Doob-Meyer decomposition to construct the unique (under mi...

Square ice is a statistical mechanics model for two-dimensional ice, widely believed to have a conformally invariant scaling limit. We associate a Peano (space filling) curve to a square ice configuration, and more generally to a so-called 6-vertex model configuration, and argue that its scaling limit is a space-filling version of the random fractal curve SLE$_\kappa$, Schramm--Loewner evolution with parameter $\kappa$, where $4<\kappa\leq 12+8\sqrt{2}$. For square ice, $\kap...

We review some of the results that have been derived in the last years on conformal invariance, scaling limits and properties of some two-dimensional random curves. In particular, we describe the intuitive ideas that lead to the definition of the Schramm-Loewner evolutions SLE, we define these objects, study its various properties, show how to compute (probabilities, critical exponents) using SLE, relate SLE to planar Brownian motions (i.e. the determination of the critical e...