We study the biased random walk in positive random conductances on $\mathbb
{Z}^d$. This walk is transient in the direction of the bias. Our main result is
that the random walk is ballistic if, and only if, the conductances have finite
mean. Moreover, in the sub-ballistic regime we find the polynomial order of the
distance moved by the particle. This extends results obtained by Shen [Ann.
Appl. Probab. 12 (2002) 477-510], who proved positivity of the speed in the
uniformly elliptic setting.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/13-AOP835 the Annals of
Probability (http://www.imstat.org/aop/) by the Institute of Mathematical
Statistics (http://www.imstat.org
We consider one-dimensional random walks in random environment which are
transient to the right. Our main interest is in the study of the sub-ballistic
regime, where at time $n$ the particle is typically at a distance of order
$O(n^\kappa)$ from the origin, $\kappa\in(0,1)$. We investigate the
probabilities of moderate deviations from this behaviour. Specifically, we are
interested in quenched and annealed probabilities of slowdown (at time $n$, the
particle is at a distance of order $O(n^{\nu_0})$ from the origin, $\nu_0\in
(0,\kappa)$), and speedup (at time $n$, the particle is at a distance of order
$n^{\nu_1}$ from the origin, $\nu_1\in (\kappa,1)$), for the current location
of the particle and for the hitting times. Also, we study probabilities of
backtracking: at time $n$, the particle is located around $(-n^\nu)$, thus
making an unusual excursion to the left. For the slowdown, our results are
valid in the ballistic case as well.Comment: 43 pages, 4 figures; to appear in Probability Theory and Related
Field
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