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Geometry and Duality of Alternating Markov Chains

Probability 2025-04-30 v2 Information Theory math.IT

Abstract

In this note, we realize the half-steps of a general class of Markov chains as alternating projections with respect to the reverse Kullback-Leibler divergence between convex sets of joint probability distributions. Using this characterization, we provide a geometric proof of an information-theoretic duality between the Markov chains defined by the even and odd half-steps of the alternating projection scheme.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2410.12721,
  title  = {Geometry and Duality of Alternating Markov Chains},
  author = {Deven Mithal and Lorenzo Orecchia},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2410.12721},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

V2: Significantly simplified and shortened