Construction and convergence results for stable webs

Abstract: We introduce a new metric for collections of aged paths and a robust set of criteria for compactness for a set of collection of aged paths in the topology corresponding to this metric. We show that the distribution of stable webs ($1< \alpha \leq 2$) made up of collections of stable paths is tight in this topology. We then show the weak convergence of appropriately normalized systems of coalescing random walks in the domain of attraction of stable laws for $1 < \alpha \leq 2$ under this metric to the corresponding stable web. We obtain some path results in the brownian case.