We show that the Mallows measure on permutations of $1,\dots ,n$ arises as the law of the unique Gale–Shapley stable matching of the random bipartite graph with vertex set conditioned to be perfect, where preferences arise from the natural total ordering of the vertices of each gender but are restricted to the (random) edges of the graph. We extend this correspondence to infinite intervals, for which the situation is more intricate. We prove that almost surely, every stable matching of the random bipartite graph obtained by performing Bernoulli percolation on the complete bipartite graph $K_{{\mathbb Z},{\mathbb Z}}$ falls into one of two classes: a countable family $(\sigma _n)_{n\in {\mathbb Z}}$ of tame stable matchings, in which the length of the longest edge crossing k is $O(\log |k|)$ as $k\to \pm \infty $, and an uncountable family of wild stable matchings, in which this length is $\exp \Omega (k)$ as $k\to +\infty $. The tame stable matching $\sigma _n$ has the law of the Mallows permutation of ${\mathbb Z}$ (as constructed by Gnedin and Olshanski) composed with the shift $k\mapsto k+n$. The permutation $\sigma _{n+1}$ dominates $\sigma _{n}$ pointwise, and the two permutations are related by a shift along a random strictly increasing sequence.

An abelian processor is an automaton whose output is independent of the order of its inputs. Bond and Levine have proved that a network of abelian processors performs the same computation regardless of processing order (subject only to a halting condition). We prove that any finite abelian processor can be emulated by a network of certain very simple abelian processors, which we call gates. The most fundamental gate is a toppler, which absorbs input particles until their number exceeds some given threshold, at which point it topples, emitting one particle and returning to its initial state. With the exception of an adder gate, which simply combines two streams of particles, each of our gates has only one input wire, which sends letters (‘particles’) from a unary alphabet. Our results can be reformulated in terms of the functions computed by processors, and one consequence is that any increasing function from ℕk to ℕℓ that is the sum of a linear function and a periodic function can be expressed in terms of (possibly nested) sums of floors of quotients by integers.

We prove that proper coloring distinguishes between block factors and finitely dependent stationary processes. A stochastic process is finitely dependent if variables at sufficiently well-separated locations are independent; it is a block factor if it can be expressed as an equivariant finite-range function of independent variables. The problem of finding non-block-factor finitely dependent processes dates back to 1965. The first published example appeared in 1993, and we provide arguably the first natural examples. Schramm proved in 2008 that no stationary 1-dependent 3-coloring of the integers exists, and asked whether a $k$ -dependent $q$ -coloring exists for any $k$ and $q$ . We give a complete answer by constructing a 1-dependent 4-coloring and a 2-dependent 3-coloring. Our construction is canonical and natural, yet very different from all previous schemes. In its pure form it yields precisely the two finitely dependent colorings mentioned above, and no others. The processes provide unexpected connections between extremal cases of the Lovász local lemma and descent and peak sets of random permutations. Neither coloring can be expressed as a block factor, nor as a function of a finite-state Markov chain; indeed, no stationary finitely dependent coloring can be so expressed. We deduce extensions involving $d$ dimensions and shifts of finite type; in fact, any nondegenerate shift of finite type also distinguishes between block factors and finitely dependent processes.

Two related issues are explored for bond percolation on ${\mathbb{Z}^d$ (with d ≥ 3) and its dual plaquette process. Firstly, for what values of the parameter p does the complement of the infinite open cluster possess an infinite component? The corresponding critical point pfin satisfies pfin ≥ pc, and strict inequality is proved when either d is sufficiently large, or d ≥ 7 and the model is sufficiently spread out. It is not known whether d ≥ 3 suffices. Secondly, for what p does there exist an infinite dual surface of plaquettes? The associated critical point psurf satisfies psurf ≥ pfin.

Let $\Xi $ be a discrete set in ${{\mathbb{R}}^{d}}$ . Call the elements of $\Xi $ centers. The well-known Voronoi tessellation partitions ${{\mathbb{R}}^{d}}$ into polyhedral regions (of varying volumes) by allocating each site of ${{\mathbb{R}}^{d}}$ to the closest center. Here we study allocations of ${{\mathbb{R}}^{d}}$ to $\Xi $ in which each center attempts to claim a region of equal volume $\alpha $ .

We focus on the case where $\Xi $ arises from a Poisson process of unit intensity. In an earlier paper by the authors it was proved that there is a unique allocation which is stable in the sense of the Gale–Shapley marriage problem. We study the distance $X$ from a typical site to its allocated center in the stable allocation.

The model exhibits a phase transition in the appetite $\alpha $ . In the critical case $\alpha \,=\,1$ we prove a power law upper bound on $X$ in dimension $d\,=\,1$ . (Power law lower bounds were proved earlier for all $d$ ). In the non-critical cases $\alpha <1$ and $\alpha \,>1$ we prove exponential upper bounds on $X$ .

We consider the bond percolation model on the three-dimensional cubic lattice, in which individual edges are retained independently with probability p. We shall describe a subgraph of the lattice as ‘entangled’ if, roughly speaking, it cannot be ‘pulled apart’ in three dimensions. We shall discuss possible ways of turning this into a rigorous definition of entanglement. For a broad class of such definitions, we shall prove that for p sufficiently close to zero, the graph of retained edges has no infinite entangled subgraph almost surely, thereby establishing that there is a phase transition for entanglement at some value of p strictly between zero and unity.

We study finite and infinite entangled graphsin the bond percolation process in three dimensionswith density $p$.After a discussion of the relevant definitions,the entanglement critical probabilities are defined.The size of the maximal entangled graph at the origin is studied for small $p$, and it is shown that this graph has radius whose tail decays at least as fast as $\exp(-\alpha n/\log n)$; indeed, the logarithm may be replaced by any iterate of logarithmfor an appropriate positive constant $\alpha$. We explore the question of almost sure uniqueness of the infinite maximal open entangled graph when $p$ is large, and we establish two relevant theorems. We make several conjectures concerning the properties of entangled graphs in percolation. http://www.statslab.cam.ac.uk/$\sim$grg/ 1991 Mathematics Subject Classification: primary 60K35; secondary 05C10, 57M25, 82B41, 82B43, 82D60.