| Abstract: | The critical probability for site percolation on the square lattice is not known exactly. Several authors have given rigorous upper and lower bounds. Some recent lower bounds are (each displayed here with the first three digits) 0.503 (Tóth 13]), 0.522 (Zuev 15]), and the best lower bound so far, 0.541 (Menshikov and Pelikh 12]). By a modification of the method of Menshikov and Pelikh we get a significant improvement, namely, 0.556. Apart from a few classical results on percolation and coupling, which are explicitly stated in the Introduction, this paper is self-contained. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. |
