The critical probability for percolation on finite graphs

Abstract: We determine the critical probability for Bernoulli bond percolation on essentially any finite graph. Namely, letting $λ(G)$ denote the spectral radius (maximum eigenvalue) of $G$, we prove that the critical probability is at $1/λ(G)$: above this probability there is typically a component of order $Ω(λ(G))$, whereas below it all components are of order at most $O(\sqrt{|G|})$. These results in particular confirm a conjecture of Krivelevich and Samotij about percolation on graphs of a given average degree, and vastly extend theorems of Bollobás, Borgs, Chayes, and Riordan, who proved analogous results but only for dense graphs. Our theorems are optimal in many regimes, and also demonstrate that percolation has an unexpectedly subtle behaviour on graphs whose spectral radius is roughly the square root of their maximum degree.