Ellipses Percolation

Abstract

We define a continuum percolation model that provides a collection of random ellipses on the plane and study the connectivity behavior of the covered set and the vacant set, the one obtained by removing all ellipses. Our model generalizes a construction that appears implicitly in the Poisson cylinder model of Tykesson and Windisch. The ellipses model has a parameter $\alpha > 0$ associated with the tail decay of the major axis distribution; we only consider distributions $\rho$ satisfying $\rho [r, \infty ) \asymp r^{-\alpha }$. We prove that this model presents a double phase transition in $\alpha$. For $\alpha \in (0,1]$ the plane is completely covered by the ellipses, almost surely. For $\alpha \in (1,2)$ the vacant set is not empty but does not percolate for any positive density of ellipses, while the covered set always percolates. For $\alpha \in (2, \infty )$ the vacant set percolates for small densities of ellipses and the covered set percolates for large densities. Moreover, we prove for the critical parameter $\alpha = 2$ that there is a non-degenerate interval of densities for which the probability of crossing boxes of a fixed proportion is bounded away from zero and one. In this interval neither the covered set nor the vacant set percolate, a behavior that is similar to critical independent percolation on $\mathbb {Z}^2$.