English

Spectral gap for random-to-random shuffling on linear extensions

Probability 2017-03-01 v4 Combinatorics

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a new Markov chain which generalizes random-to-random shuffling on permutations to random-to-random shuffling on linear extensions of a finite poset of size nn. We conjecture that the second largest eigenvalue of the transition matrix is bounded above by (1+1/n)(12/n)(1+1/n)(1-2/n) with equality when the poset is disconnected. This Markov chain provides a way to sample the linear extensions of the poset with a relaxation time bounded above by n2/(n+2)n^2/(n+2) and a mixing time of O(n2logn)O(n^2 \log n). We conjecture that the mixing time is in fact O(nlogn)O(n \log n) as for the usual random-to-random shuffling.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1412.7488,
  title  = {Spectral gap for random-to-random shuffling on linear extensions},
  author = {Arvind Ayyer and Anne Schilling and Nicolas M. Thiéry},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1412.7488},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

16 pages, 10 figures; v2: typos fixed plus extra information in figures; v3: added explicit conjecture 2.2 + Section 3.6 on the diameter of the Markov Chain as evidence + misc minor improvements; v4: fixed bibliography

R2 v1 2026-06-22T07:42:45.551Z