The boundary of random planar maps via looptrees

Abstract

We study the scaling limits of looptrees associated with Bienaym\'e--Galton--Watson (BGW) trees, that are obtained by replacing every vertex of the tree by a "cycle" whose size is its degree. First, we consider BGW trees whose offspring distribution is critical and in the domain of attraction of a Gaussian distribution. We prove that the Brownian CRT is the scaling limit of the associated looptrees, thereby confirming a prediction of [CK14b]. Then, we deal with BGW trees whose offspring distribution is critical and heavy-tailed. We show that the scaling limit of the associated looptrees is a multiple of the unit circle. This corresponds to a so-called condensation phenomenon, meaning that the underlying tree exhibits a vertex with macroscopic degree. Here, we rely on an invariance principle for random walks with negative drift, which is of independent interest. Finally, we apply these results to the study of the scaling limits of large faces of Boltzmann planar maps. We complete the results of [Ric17] and establish a phase transition for the topology of these maps in the non-generic critical regime.