The scaling limits of the Minimal Spanning Tree and Invasion Percolation in the plane

Abstract

We prove that the Minimal Spanning Tree and the Invasion Percolation Tree on a version of the triangular lattice in the complex plane have unique scaling limits, which are invariant under rotations, scalings, and, in the case of the $\mathsf{MST}$, also under translations. However, they are not expected to be conformally invariant. We also prove some geometric properties of the limiting $\mathsf{MST}$. The topology of convergence is the space of spanning trees introduced by Aizenman et al. [Random Structures Algorithms 15 (1999) 319–365], and the proof relies on the existence and conformal covariance of the scaling limit of the near-critical percolation ensemble, established in our earlier works.