We compute the almost-sure Hausdorff dimension of the double points of chordal SLE$_\kappa$ for $\kappa > 4$, confirming a prediction of Duplantier--Saleur (1989) for the contours of the FK model. We also compute the dimension of the cut points of chordal SLE$_\kappa$ for $\kappa > 4$ as well as analogous dimensions for the radial and whole-plane SLE$_\kappa(\rho)$ processes for $\kappa > 0$. We derive these facts as consequences of a more general result in which we compute the dimension of the intersection of two flow lines of the formal vector field $e^{ih/\chi}$, where $h$ is a Gaussian free field and $\chi > 0$, of different angles with each other and with the domain boundary.

Via a Dirichlet form extension theorem and making full use of two-sided heat kernel estimates, we establish quenched invariance principles for ran- dom walks in random environments with a boundary. In particular, we prove that the random walk on a supercritical percolation cluster or among random conductances bounded uniformly from below in a half-space, quarter-space, etc., converges when rescaled diffusively to a reflecting Brownian motion, which has been one of the important open problems in this area. We establish a similar result for the random conductance model in a box, which allows us to improve existing asymptotic estimates for the relevant mixing time. Furthermore, in the uniformly elliptic case, we present quenched invariance prin- ciples for domains with more general boundaries.

We introduce a class of M×M sample covariance matrices Q which subsumes and generalizes several previous models. The associated population covariance matrix Σ=EQ is assumed to differ from the identity by a matrix of bounded rank. All quantities except the rank of Σ−IM may depend on M in an arbitrary fashion. We investigate the principal components, i.e.\ the top eigenvalues and eigenvectors, of Q. We derive precise large deviation estimates on the generalized components ⟨w,ξi⟩ of the outlier and non-outlier eigenvectors ξi. Our results also hold near the so-called BBP transition, where outliers are created or annihilated, and for degenerate or near-degenerate outliers. We believe the obtained rates of convergence to be optimal. In addition, we derive the asymptotic distribution of the generalized components of the non-outlier eigenvectors. A novel observation arising from our results is that, unlike the eigenvalues, the eigenvectors of the principal components contain information about the \emph{subcritical} spikes of Σ. The proofs use several results on the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the uncorrelated matrix Q, satisfying EQ=IM, as input: the isotropic local Marchenko-Pastur law established in [9], level repulsion, and quantum unique ergodicity of the eigenvectors. The latter is a special case of a new universality result for the joint eigenvalue-eigenvector distribution.