This thesis contains four papers and two introductory chapters. It is mainly devoted to problems concerning random growth models related to the Loewner differential equation. In Paper I we derive a rate of convergence of the Loewner driving function for loop-erased random walk to Brownian motion with speed 2 on the unit circle, the Loewner driving function for radial SLE(2). Thereby we provide the first instance of a formal derivation of a rate of convergence for any of the discrete models known to converge to SLE. In Paper II we use the known convergence of (radial) loop-erased random walk to radial SLE(2) to prove that the scaling limit of loop-erased random walk excursion in the upper half plane is chordal SLE(2). Our proof relies on a version of Wilson’s algorithm for weighted graphs together with a Beurling-type hitting estimate for random walk excursion. We also establish and use the convergence of the radial SLE path to the chordal SLE path as the bulk point tends to a boundary point. In the final section we sketch how to extend our results to more general domains. In Paper III we prove an upper bound on the optimal Hölder exponent for the chordal SLE path parameterized by capacity and thereby establish the optimal exponent as conjectured by J. Lind. We also give a new proof of the lower bound. Our proofs are based on sharp estimates of moments of the derivative of the inverse SLE map. In particular, we improve an estimate of G. F. Lawler. In Paper IV we consider radial Loewner evolutions driven by unimodular Lévy processes. We rescale the hulls of the evolution by capacity, and prove that the weak limit of the rescaled hulls exists. We then study a random growth model obtained by driving the Loewner equation with a compound Poisson process with two real parameters: the intensity of the underlying Poisson process and a localization parameter of the Poisson kernel which determines the jumps. A particular choice of parameters yields a growth process similar to the Hastings-Levitov HL(0) model. We describe the asymptotic behavior of the hulls with respect to the parameters, showing that growth tends to become localized as the jump parameter increases. We obtain deterministic evolutions in one limiting case, and Loewner evolution driven by a unimodular Cauchy process in another. We also show that the Hausdorff dimension of the limiting rescaled hulls is equal to 1.

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Nous étudions le déterminant du laplacien sur les fibrés vectoriels sur les graphes et l'utilisons, en lien avec des techniques d'analyse complexe discrète, pour comprendre des modèles de physique statistique. Nous calculons certaines constantes de réseaux, construisons des limites d'échelles d'excursions de la marche aléatoire à boucles effacées sur les surfaces, et étudions certains champs gaussiens et processus déterminantaux. / We study the determinant of the Laplacian on vector bundles on graphs and use it, combined with discrete complex analysis, to study models of statistical physics. We compute exact lattice constants, construct scaling limits for excursions of the loop-erased random walk on surfaces, and study some Gaussian fields and determinantal processes.