Paper detail

The difference between a discrete and continuous harmonic measure

We consider a discrete-time, continuous-state random walk with steps uniformly distributed in a disk of radius of $h$. For a simply connected domain $D$ in the plane, let $ω_h(0,\cdot;D)$ be the discrete harmonic measure at $0\in D$ associated with this random walk, and $ω(0,\cdot;D)$ be the (continuous) harmonic measure at $0$. For domains $D$ with analytic boundary, we prove there is a bounded continuous function $σ_D(z)$ on $\partial D$ such that for functions $g$ which are in $C^{2+α}(\partial D)$ for some $α>0$ $$ \lim_{h\downarrow 0} \frac{\int_{\partial D} g(ξ) ω_h(0,|dξ|;D) -\int_{\partial D} g(ξ)ω(0,|dξ|;D)}{h} = \int_{\partial D}g(z) σ_D(z) |dz|. $$ We give an explicit formula for $σ_D$ in terms of the conformal map from $D$ to the unit disc. The proof relies on some fine approximations of the potential kernel and Green's function of the random walk by their continuous counterparts, which may be of independent interest.