We consider (near-)critical percolation on the square lattice. Let $\mathcal{M}_{n}$ be the size of the largest open cluster contained in the box $[-n,n]^2$, and let $\pi(n)$ be the probability that there is an open path from $O$ to the boundary of the box. It is well-known that for all $0< a < b$ the probability that $\mathcal{M}_{n}$ is smaller than $a n^2 \pi(n)$ and the probability that $\mathcal{M}_{n}$ is larger than $b n^2 \pi(n)$ are bounded away from $0$ as $n \rightarrow \infty$. It is a natural question, which arises for instance in the study of so-called frozen-percolation processes, if a similar result holds for the probability that $\mathcal{M}_{n}$ is {\em between} $a n^2 \pi(n)$ and $b n^2 \pi(n)$. By a suitable partition of the box, and a careful construction involving the building blocks, we show that the answer to this question is affirmative. The `sublinearity' of $1/\pi(n)$ appears to be essential for the argument.
Additional Metadata
Keywords Critical percolation, Cluster size
THEME Logistics (theme 3), Energy (theme 4)
Publisher ims
Persistent URL dx.doi.org/10.1214/ECP.v17-2263
Journal Electronic Communications in Probability
Citation
van den Berg, J, & Conijn, R.P. (2012). On the size of the largest cluster in 2D critical percolation. Electronic Communications in Probability, 17. doi:10.1214/ECP.v17-2263

Additional Files
Publisher Version