Related papers: Carries, Shuffling and An Amazing Matrix

We extend a technique for lower-bounding the mixing time of card-shuffling Markov chains, and use it to bound the mixing time of the Rudvalis Markov chain, as well as two variants considered by Diaconis and Saloff-Coste. We show that in…

Pairs of numerically computed trajectories of a chaotic system may coalesce because of finite arithmetic precision. We analyse an example of this phenomenon, showing that it occurs surprisingly frequently. We argue that our model belongs to…

Suppose $\mathbb{F}$ is a field and let $\mathbf{a} := (a_1, a_2, \dotsc)$ be a sequence of non-zero elements in $\mathbb{F}$. For $\mathbf{a}_n := (a_1, \dotsc, a_n)$, we consider the family $\mathcal{M}_n(\mathbf{a})$ of $n \times n$…

We consider a stack sorting algorithm where only the appropriate output values are popped from the stack and then any remaining entries in the stack are run through the stack in reverse order. We identify the basis for the $2$-reverse pass…

A random matrix is likely to be well conditioned, and motivated by this well known property we employ random matrix multipliers to advance some fundamental matrix computations. This includes numerical stabilization of Gaussian elimination…

Consider a finite number of balls initially placed in $L$ bins. At each time step a ball is taken from each non-empty bin. Then all the balls are uniformly reassigned into bins. This finite Markov chain is called Repeated Balls-into-Bins…

For positive integers $k$ and $n$, the shuffle group $G_{k,kn}$ is generated by the $k!$ permutations of a deck of $kn$ cards performed by cutting the deck into $k$ piles with $n$ cards in each pile, and then perfectly interleaving these…

This paper presents new results on randomization using Kak's Mesh Array for matrix multiplication. These results include the periods of the longest cycles when the the array is used for scrambling and the autocorrelation function of the…

Changing time of simple continuous-time Markov counting processes by independent unit-rate Poisson processes results in Markov counting processes for which we provide closed-form transition rates via composition of trajectories and with…

We study a family of shuffling operators on the symmetric group $S_n$, which includes the top-to-random shuffle. The general shuffling scheme consists of removing one card at a time from the deck (according to some probability distribution)…

We study continuous time Markov processes on graphs. The notion of frequency is introduced, which serves well as a scaling factor between any Markov time of a continuous time Markov process and that of its jump chain. As an application, we…

Consider a system of \(n\) players in which each initially starts on a different team. At each time step, we select an individual winner and an individual loser randomly and the loser joins the winner's team. The resulting Markov chain and…

The alternate row and column scaling algorithm applied to a positive $n\times n$ matrix $A$ converges to a doubly stochastic matrix $S(A)$, sometimes called the \emph{Sinkhorn limit} of $A$. For every positive integer $n$, a two parameter…

We propose a new approach for estimating the finite dimensional transition matrix of a Markov chain using a large number of independent sample paths observed at random times. The sample paths may be observed as few as two times, and the…

This paper studies a number of matrix models of size n and the associated Markov chains for the eigenvalues of the models for consecutive n's. They are consecutive principal minors for two of the models, GUE with external source and the…

We use coupling to study the time taken until the distribution of a statistic on a Markov chain is close to its stationary distribution. Coupling is a common technique used to obtain upper bounds on mixing times of Markov chains, and we…

The number of $n \times n$ matrices whose entries are either -1, 0, or 1, whose row- and column- sums are all 1, and such that in every row and every column the non-zero entries alternate in sign, is proved to be $[1!4! >...…

In this paper, we study some cards shuffles which are used by magicians. We focus ourselves on the possibility to hit eventually the initial state after several shuffles. This is a classical problem arising in discrete dynamical systems.…

The Curveball algorithm is a variation on well-known switch-based Markov chain approaches for uniformly sampling binary matrices with fixed row and column sums. Instead of a switch, the Curveball algorithm performs a so-called binomial…

Various card tricks involve under-down dealing, where alternatively one card is placed under the deck and the next card is dealt. We study how the cards need to be prepared in the deck to be dealt in order. The order in which the $N$ cards…