Functional weak limit of random walks in cooling random environment

Abstract

We prove an annealed weak limit of the trajectory of the random walks in cooling random environment (RWCRE) under both slow (polynomial) and fast (exponential) cooling. We identify the weak limit when the underlying static environment is recurrent (Sinai’s model). Avena and den Hollander have previously proved a Gaussian limiting distribution for the distribution of the endpoint of the walk. We find that the weak limit of the trajectory exists as a time-rescaled Brownian motion in the slow cooling case but the limit degenerates to a constant function in the fast cooling one.