Let Z2 denote the square lattice graph with vertex set Z2 and edges between nearest neighbors (Euclidean distance 1).
A self-avoiding walk (SAW) on a graph G=(V,E) is a walk that visits no vertex more than once. In particular, for ℓ=1,2,… and v∈V, let N(v,ℓ) denote the number of SAWs in G of length ℓ starting at v.
[SSSY2014-Nv-ell]
The connective constant (also called the SAW growth constant) of a graph G is defined by
μ(G) := v∈Vsup ℓ→∞limsupN(v,ℓ)1/ℓ.
[SSSY2014-def-cc]
For vertex-transitive graphs, the limsup in the definition above can be replaced by a true limit.
[SSSY2014-rem-vtx-limit]
For the square lattice G=Z2, let cn be the number of n-step SAWs starting at the origin. Then the square-lattice SAW connective constant is
C38:=μZ2 := n→∞limcn1/n.