A Characterisation of the Gaussian Free Field
A characterisation of the Gaussian free field Nathanaël Berestycki∗ Ellen Powell y Gourab Rayz August 19, 2019 Abstract We prove that a random distribution in two dimensions which is conformally invariant and satisfies a natural domain Markov property is a multiple of the Gaussian free field. This result holds subject only to a fourth moment assumption. 1 Introduction 1.1 Setup and main result The Gaussian free field (abbreviated GFF) has emerged in recent years as an object of central importance in probability theory. In two dimensions in particular, the GFF is conjectured (and in many cases proved) to arise as a universal scaling limit from a broad range of models, including the Ginzburg–Landau ' interface model ([20, 29, 26]), the height function associated to planar domino tilings and the dimerr model ([21, 12,5,6, 13, 23]), and the characteristic polynomial of random matrices ([18, 32, 19]). It also plays a crucial role in the mathematically rigourous description of Liouville quantum gravity; see in particular [17,1] and [14] for some recent major developments (we refer to [30] for the original physics paper). Note that the interpretations of Liouville quantum gravity in the references above are slightly different from one another, and are in fact more closely related to the GFF with Neumann boundary conditions than the GFF with Dirichlet boundary conditions treated in this paper. As a canonical random distribution enjoying conformal invariance and a domain Markov prop- erty, the GFF is also intimately linked to the Schramm–Loewner Evolution (SLE). In particular SLE4 and related curves can be viewed as level lines of the GFF ([36, 35, 11, 31]).
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