English

Cutoff for the Swendsen-Wang dynamics on the lattice

Probability 2019-04-03 v2

Abstract

We study the Swendsen-Wang dynamics for the qq-state Potts model on the lattice. Introduced as an alternative algorithm of the classical single-site Glauber dynamics, the Swendsen-Wang dynamics is a non-local Markov chain that recolors many vertices at once based on the random-cluster representation of the Potts model. In this work we derive strong enough bounds on the mixing time, proving that the Swendsen-Wang dynamics on the lattice at sufficiently high temperatures exhibits a sharp transition from "unmixed" to "well-mixed," which is called the cutoff phenomenon. In particular, we establish that at high enough temperatures the Swendsen-Wang dynamics on the torus (Z/nZ)d(\mathbb{Z}/n\mathbb{Z})^d has cutoff at time d2(log(1γ))1logn\frac{d}{2} \left( -\log (1-\gamma) \right)^{-1} \log n, where γ(β)\gamma(\beta) is the spectral gap of the infinite-volume dynamics.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1805.04227,
  title  = {Cutoff for the Swendsen-Wang dynamics on the lattice},
  author = {Danny Nam and Allan Sly},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1805.04227},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

44 pages, 2 figures