Hitting time of large subsets of the hypercube

We study the simple random walk on the n-dimensional hypercube, in particular its hitting times of large (possibly random) sets. We give simple conditions on these sets ensuring that the properly rescaled hitting time is asymptotically exponentially distributed, uniformly in the starting position of the walk. These conditions are then verified for percolation clouds with densities that are much smaller than (n log n)(-1). A main motivation behind this article is the study of the so-called aging phenomenon in the Random Energy Model, the simplest model of a mean-field spin glass. Our results allow us to prove aging in the REM for all temperatures, thereby extending earlier results to their optimal temperature domain. (C) 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.