Abstract: In this talk we present large deviation lower bounds for the probability of certain bulk-deviation events depending on the occupation-time field of a simple random walk on the Euclidean lattice in dimensions larger or equal to three.
As a particular application, these bounds imply an exact leading order decay rate for the probability of the event that a simple random walk covers a substantial fraction of a macroscopic body, when combined with a corresponding upper bound previously obtained by Sznitman. As a pivotal tool for deriving such optimal lower bounds, we recall the model of tilted walks which was first introduced by Li in order to develop similar large deviation lower bounds for the probability of disconnecting a macroscopic body from an enclosing box by the trace of a simple random walk. We then discuss a refined local coupling with the model of random interlacements which is used to locally approximate the occupation times of the tilted walk.

Based on joint work in progress with A. Chiarini (University of Padova).