Related papers: On barycentric subdivision, with simulations
We consider several special cases of iterations of random i.i.d. linear functions with beta distributed fixed points that generate nested interval schemes when iterated in a backward direction, and ergodic Markov chains in the forward…
Markov chains are one of the well-known tools for modeling and analyzing stochastic systems. At the same time, they are used for constructing random walks that can achieve a given stationary distribution. This paper is concerned with…
In the United States, regions are frequently divided into districts for the purpose of electing representatives. How the districts are drawn can affect who's elected, and drawing districts to give an advantage to a certain group is known as…
We present a Markov-chain analysis of blockwise-stochastic algorithms for solving partially block-separable optimization problems. Our main contributions to the extensive literature on these methods are statements about the Markov operators…
In this paper, we exhibit an irreducible Markov chain $M$ on the edge $k$-colorings of bipartite graphs based on certain properties of the solution space. We show that diameter of this Markov chain grows linearly with the number of edges in…
Markov chains are a convenient means of generating realizations of networks, since they require little more than a procedure for rewiring edges. If a rewiring procedure exists for generating new graphs with specified statistical properties,…
We introduce a new random graph model motivated by biological questions relating to speciation. This random graph is defined as the stationary distribution of a Markov chain on the space of graphs on $\{1, \ldots, n\}$. The dynamics of this…
This paper studies a Markov chain for phylogenetic reconstruction which uses a popular transition between tree topologies known as subtree pruning-and-regrafting (SPR). We analyze the Markov chain in the simpler setting that the generating…
We give computable bounds on the rate of convergence of the transition probabilities to the stationary distribution for a certain class of geometrically ergodic Markov chains. Our results are different from earlier estimates of Meyn and…
Mahlmann and Schindelhauer (2005) defined a Markov chain which they called $k$-Flipper, and showed that it is irreducible on the set of all connected regular graphs of a given degree (at least 3). We study the 1-Flipper chain, which we call…
A rescaled Markov chain converges uniformly in probability to the solution of an ordinary differential equation, under carefully specified assumptions. The presentation is much simpler than those in the outside literature. The result may be…
The time to converge to the steady state of a finite Markov chain can be greatly reduced by a lifting operation, which creates a new Markov chain on an expanded state space. For a class of quadratic objectives, we show an analogous behavior…
A sequence of Markov chains is said to exhibit (total variation) cutoff if the convergence to stationarity in total variation distance is abrupt. We consider reversible lazy chains. We prove a necessary and sufficient condition for the…
We consider consecutive random subdivision of polygons described as follows. Given an initial convex polygon with $d\ge 3$ edges, we choose a point at random on each edge, such that the proportions in which these points divide edges are…
A branching process in a Markovian environment consists of an irreducible Markov chain on a set of "environments" together with an offspring distribution for each environment. At each time step the chain transitions to a new random…
We study the convergence rate to stationarity for a class of exchangeable partition-valued Markov chains called cut-and-paste chains. The law governing the transitions of a cut-and-paste chain are determined by products of i.i.d. stochastic…
We consider the model of the Brownian plane, which is a pointed non-compact random metric space with the topology of the complex plane. The Brownian plane can be obtained as the scaling limit in distribution of the uniform infinite planar…
Consider the partial sums {S_t} of a real-valued functional F(Phi(t)) of a Markov chain {Phi(t)} with values in a general state space. Assuming only that the Markov chain is geometrically ergodic and that the functional F is bounded, the…
A finite ergodic Markov chain exhibits cutoff if its distance to equilibrium remains close to its initial value over a certain number of iterations and then abruptly drops to near 0 on a much shorter time scale. Originally discovered in the…
We give an example of a transient reversible Markov chain that almost surely has only a finite number of cutpoints. We explain how this is relevant to a conjecture of Diaconis and Freedman and a question of Kaimanovich. We also answer…