Invariance principle for variable speed random walks on trees

Abstract

We consider stochastic processes on complete, locally compact tree-like metric spaces (T,r)(T,r) on their “natural scale” with boundedly finite speed measure νν. Given a triple (T,r,ν)(T,r,ν) such a speed-νν motion on (T,r)(T,r) can be characterized as the unique strong Markov process which if restricted to compact subtrees satisfies for all x,y∈Tx,y∈T and all positive, bounded measurable ff, Ex[∫τy0dsf(Xs)]=2∫Tν(dz)r(y,c(x,y,z))f(z)<∞, Ex[∫0τydsf(Xs)]=2∫Tν(dz)r(y,c(x,y,z))f(z)<∞, where c(x,y,z)c(x,y,z) denotes the branch point generated by x,y,zx,y,z. If (T,r)(T,r) is a discrete tree, XX is a continuous time nearest neighbor random walk which jumps from vv to v′∼vv′∼v at rate 12⋅(ν({v})⋅r(v,v′))−112⋅(ν({v})⋅r(v,v′))−1. If (T,r)(T,r) is path-connected, XX has continuous paths and equals the νν-Brownian motion which was recently constructed in [Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 365 (2013) 3115–3150]. In this paper, we show that speed-νnνn motions on (Tn,rn)(Tn,rn) converge weakly in path space to the speed-νν motion on (T,r)(T,r) provided that the underlying triples of metric measure spaces converge in the Gromov–Hausdorff-vague topology introduced in [Stochastic Process. Appl. 126 (2016) 2527–2553].