On radial stochastic Loewner evolution in multiply connected domains

We discuss the extension of radial SLE to multiply connected planar domains. First, we extend Loewner’s theory of slit mappings to multiply connected domains by establishing the radial Komatu–Loewner equation, and show that a simple curve from the boundary to the bulk is encoded by a motion on moduli space and a motion on the boundary of the domain. Then, we show that the vector-field describing the motion of the moduli is Lipschitz.We explain why this implies that “consistent,” conformally invariant random simple curves are described by multidimensional diffusions, where one component is a motion on the boundary, and the other component is a motion on moduli space. We argue what the exact form of this diffusion is (up to a single real parameter κ) in order to model boundaries of percolation clusters. Finally, we show that this moduli diffusion leads to random non-self-crossing curves satisfying the locality property if and only if κ = 6. © 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.