Strategic geometry of competing first-passage random walks

Abstract

Two competitors choose starting vertices for independent, constant-speed random walks, and each site is acquired by its first visitor. We study the spatial geometry of the resulting first-passage location game. On every finite path the optimal strategies are exactly the distributions supported on the central vertices. The proof combines reflecting-boundary harmonic barriers with a parameter-uniform aggregate estimate for product-chain exit probabilities. After diffusive rescaling, the complete two-start payoff landscape converges uniformly to the game between independent reflected Brownian motions. Its unique equilibrium concentrates at the midpoint, with explicit cubic stability. Beyond paths, attaching two leaves to every vertex of a clique of order k produces a 3k-vertex graph on which every exact optimal strategy randomizes over all k clique vertices; for k=2, this is a six-vertex tree with no pure equilibrium. The continuum best response to an endpoint is uniquely determined. A first-passage random-ranking representation relates the finite game to maximal lotteries without identifying it with nonstrategic painting, deterministic Voronoi allocation, or absorbing-trap placement. Parameter-uniform statements follow from analytic arguments or symbolic polynomial identities; identified finite exceptions and numerical enclosures have reproducible certificates.