We determine the asymptotics of the independence number of the random d-regular graph for all d≥d0. It is highly concentrated, with constant-order fluctuations around nα∗−c∗logn for explicit constants α∗(d) and c∗(d). Our proof rigorously confirms the one-step replica symmetry breaking heuristics for this problem, and we believe the techniques will be more broadly applicable to the study of other combinatorial properties of random graphs.

We consider a general class of $N\times N$ random matrices whose entries $h_{ij}$ are independent up to a symmetry constraint, but not necessarily identically distributed. Our main result is a local semicircle law which improves previous results [14] both in the bulk and at the edge. The error bounds are given in terms of the basic small parameter of the model, $\max_{i,j} \E \abs{h_{ij}}^2$. As a consequence, we prove the universality of the local $n$-point correlation functions in the bulk spectrum for a class of matrices whose entries do not have comparable variances, including random band matrices with band width $W\gg N^{1-\e_n}$ with some $\e_n>0$ and with a negligible mean-field component. In addition, we provide a coherent and pedagogical proof of the local semicircle law, streamlining and strengthening previous arguments from [17,19,6].

We consider the Ising model at its critical temperature with external magnetic field ha15/8 on the square lattice with lattice spacing a. We show that the truncated two-point function in this model decays exponentially with a rate independent of a as a ↓ 0. As a consequence, we show exponential decay in the near-critical scaling limit Euclidean magnetization field. For the lattice model with a = 1, the mass (inverse correlation length) is of order h8/15 as h ↓ 0; for the Euclidean field, it equals exactly Ch8/15 for some C. Although there has been much progress in the study of critical scaling limits, results on near-critical models are far fewer due to the lack of conformal invariance away from the critical point. Our arguments combine lattice and continuum FK representations, including coupled conformal loop and measure ensembles, showing that such ensembles can be useful even in the study of near-critical scaling limits. Thus we provide the first substantial application of measure ensembles.

Let $\widetilde{X}_{M\times N}$ be a rectangular data matrix with independent real-valued entries $[\widetilde{x}_{ij}]$ satisfying $\mathbb {E}\widetilde{x}_{ij}=0$ and $\mathbb {E}\widetilde{x}^2_{ij}=\frac{1}{M}$, $N,M\to\infty$. These entries have a subexponential decay at the tails. We will be working in the regime $N/M=d_N,\lim_{N\to\infty}d_N\neq0,1,\infty$. In this paper we prove the edge universality of correlation matrices ${X}^{\dagger}X$, where the rectangular matrix $X$ (called the standardized matrix) is obtained by normalizing each column of the data matrix $\widetilde{X}$ by its Euclidean norm. Our main result states that asymptotically the $k$-point ($k\geq1$) correlation functions of the extreme eigenvalues (at both edges of the spectrum) of the correlation matrix ${X}^{\dagger}X$ converge to those of the Gaussian correlation matrix, that is, Tracy-Widom law, and, thus, in particular, the largest and the smallest eigenvalues of ${X}^{\dagger}X$ after appropriate centering and rescaling converge to the Tracy-Widom distribution. The asymptotic distribution of extreme eigenvalues of the Gaussian correlation matrix has been worked out only recently. As a corollary of the main result in this paper, we also obtain that the extreme eigenvalues of Gaussian correlation matrices are asymptotically distributed according to the Tracy-Widom law. The proof is based on the comparison of Green functions, but the key obstacle to be surmounted is the strong dependence of the entries of the correlation matrix. We achieve this via a novel argument which involves comparing the moments of product of the entries of the standardized data matrix to those of the raw data matrix. Our proof strategy may be extended for proving the edge universality of other random matrix ensembles with dependent entries and hence is of independent interest.

Let $D={\mathbb H} \setminus \cup_{k=1}^N C_k$ be a standard slit domain where $\mathbb H$ is the upper half plane and $C_k$, $1\leq k\leq N$, are mutually disjoint horizontal line segments in $\HH$. Given a Jordan arc $\gamma\subset D$ starting at $\partial {\mathbb H},$ let $g_t$ be the unique conformal map from $D\setminus \gamma[0,t]$ onto a standard slit domain $D_t$ satisfying the hydrodynamic normalization. We prove that $g_t$ satisfies an ODE with the kernel on its righthand side being the complex Poisson kernel of the Brownian motion with darning (BMD) for $D_t$, generalizing the chordal Loewner equation for the simply connected domain $D={\mathbb H}.$ Such a generalization has been obtained by Y. Komatu in the case of circularly slit annuli and by R. O. Bauer and R. M. Friedrich in the present chordal case, but only in the sense of the left derivative in $t$. We establish the differentiability of $g_t$ in $t$ to make the equation a genuine ODE. To this end, we first derive the continuity of $g_t(z)$ in $t$ with a certain uniformity in $z$ from a probabilistic expression of $\Im g_t(z)$ in terms of the BMD for $D$, which is then combined with a Lipschitz continuity of the complex Poisson kernel under the perturbation of standard slit domains to get the desired differentiability.