Linear time approximation of the TV distance between product distributions

Konrad Anand; Alistair Benford; Heng Guo

Linear time approximation of the TV distance between product distributions

Data Structures and Algorithms 2026-07-29 v1 Methodology

Authors: Konrad Anand , Alistair Benford , Heng Guo

Abstract

We present a linear time approximation algorithm of the total variation distance between two product distributions. The main algorithm was found using ChatGPT 5.6 Sol Ultra.

Keywords

total variation distance product distributions linear time algorithm approximation algorithm

Cite

@article{arxiv.2607.27088,
  title  = {Linear time approximation of the TV distance between product distributions},
  author = {Konrad Anand and Alistair Benford and Heng Guo},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2607.27088},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

7 pages