English

Hahn polynomials and the Burnside process

Probability 2022-07-20 v2 Classical Analysis and ODEs

Abstract

We study a natural Markov chain on {0,1,,n}\{0,1,\cdots,n\} with eigenvectors the Hahn polynomials. This explicit diagonalization makes it possible to get sharp rates of convergence to stationarity. The process, the Burnside process, is a special case of the celebrated `Swendsen-Wang' or `data augmentation' algorithm. The description involves the beta-binomial distribution and Mallows model on permutations. It introduces a useful generalization of the Burnside process.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2012.13829,
  title  = {Hahn polynomials and the Burnside process},
  author = {Persi Diaconis and Chenyang Zhong},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2012.13829},
  year   = {2022}
}

Comments

29 pages; added Section 6 on a continuous limit of the Burnside process; improved the range of the parameter in Theorem 5.2; minor edits

R2 v1 2026-06-23T21:26:44.222Z