Asymptotic shapes for stationary first passage percolation on virtually nilpotent groups

We study first passage percolation (FPP) with stationary edge weights on Cayley graphs of finitely generated virtually nilpotent groups. Previous works of Benjamini-Tessera and Cantrell-Furman show that scaling limits of such FPP are given by Carnot-Carath\'eodory metrics on the associated graded nilpotent Lie group. We show a converse, i.e. that for any Cayley graph of a finitely generated nilpotent group, any Carnot-Carath\'eodory metric on the associated graded nilpotent Lie group is the scaling limit of some FPP with stationary edge weights on that graph. Moreover, for any Cayley graph of any finitely generated virtually nilpotent group, any conjugation-invariant metric is the scaling limit of some FPP with stationary edge weights on that graph. We also show that the conjugation-invariant condition is also a necessary condition in all cases where scaling limits are known to exist.
Comment: 36 pages, 3 figures