A reverse Aldous/Broder algorithm

24 Jul 2019  ·  Yiping Hu, Russell Lyons, Pengfei Tang ·

The Aldous--Broder algorithm provides a way of sampling a uniformly random spanning tree for finite connected graphs using simple random walk. Namely, start a simple random walk on a connected graph and stop at the cover time. The tree formed by all the first-entrance edges has the law of a uniform spanning tree. Here we show that the tree formed by all the last-exit edges also has the law of a uniform spanning tree. This answers a question of Tom Hayes and Cris Moore from 2010. The proof relies on a bijection that is related to the BEST theorem in graph theory. We also give other applications of our results, including new proofs of the reversibility of loop-erased random walk, of the Aldous--Broder algorithm itself, and of Wilson's algorithm.

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Probability Combinatorics 60J10, 05C81, 05C05