This is the second part of a three part series of papers. In this paper, we consider a general class of $N\times N$ random band matrices $H=(H_{ij})$ whose entries are centered random variables, independent up to a symmetry constraint. We assume that the variances $\mathbb E |H_{ij}|^2$ form a band matrix with typical band width $1\ll W\ll N$. We consider the generalized resolvent of $H$ defined as $G(Z):=(H - Z)^{-1}$, where $Z$ is a deterministic diagonal matrix such that $Z_{ij}=\left(z\mathds{1}_{1\le i \le W}+\wt z\mathds{1}_{ i > W} \right) \delta_{ij}$, with two distinct spectral parameters $z\in \mathbb C_+:=\{z\in \mathbb C:\im z>0\}$ and $\wt z\in \mathbb C_+\cup \mathbb R$. In this paper, we prove a sharp bound for the local law of the generalized resolvent $G$ for $W\gg N^{3/4}$. This bound is a key input for the proof of delocalization and bulk universality of random band matrices in [2]. Our proof depends on a fluctuations averaging bound on certain averages of polynomials in the resolvent entries, which will be proved in [10].

We use the known convergence of loop-erased random walk to radial SLE(2) to give a new proof that the scaling limit of loop-erased random walk excursion in the upper half-plane is chordal SLE(2). Our proof relies on a version of Wilson’s algorithm for weighted graphs which is used together with a Beurling-type estimate for random walk excursion. We also establish and use the convergence of the radial SLE path to the chordal SLE path as the bulk point tends to a boundary point. In the final section we sketch how to extend our results to more general simply connected domains.

The goal of this paper is to prove rigorous results for the behavior of genealogies in a one-dimensional long range biased voter model introduced by Hallatschek and Nelson [Theor. Pop. Biol. 73 (2008) 158–170]. The first step, which is easily accomplished using results of Mueller and Tribe [Probab. Theory Related Fields 102 (1995) 519–545], is to show that when space and time are rescaled correctly, our biased voter model converges to a Wright–Fisher SPDE. A simple extension of a result of Durrett and Restrepo [Ann. Appl. Probab. 18 (2008) 334–358] then shows that the dual branching coalescing random walk converges to a branching Brownian motion in which particles coalesce after an exponentially distributed amount of intersection local time. Brunet et al. [Phys. Rev. E (3) 76 (2007) 041104, 20] have conjectured that genealogies in models of this type are described by the Bolthausen–Sznitman coalescent, see [Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 110 (2013) 437–442]. However, in the model we study there are no simultaneous coalescences. Our third and most significant result concerns “tracer dynamics” in which some of the initial particles in the biased voter model are labeled. We show that the joint distribution of the labeled and unlabeled particles converges to the solution of a system of stochastic partial differential equations. A new duality equation that generalizes the one Shiga [In Stochastic Processes in Physics and Engineering (Bielefeld, 1986) (1988) 345–355 Reidel] developed for the Wright–Fisher SPDE is the key to the proof of that result.

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We consider the KPZ equation in one space dimension driven by a sta- tionary centred space–time random field, which is sufficiently integrable and mixing, but not necessarily Gaussian. We show that, in the weakly asymmetric regime, the solution to this equation considered at a suitable large scale and in a suitable reference frame converges to the Hopf–Cole solution to the KPZ equation driven by space–time Gaussian white noise. While the limit- ing process depends only on the integrated variance of the driving field, the diverging constants appearing in the definition of the reference frame also depend on higher order moments.