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We study the problem of approximating the partition function of the ferromagnetic Ising model in graphs and hypergraphs. Our first result is a deterministic approximation scheme (an FPTAS) for the partition function in bounded degree graphs…
We study the approximability of computing the partition function for ferromagnetic two-state spin systems. The remarkable algorithm by Jerrum and Sinclair showed that there is a fully polynomial-time randomized approximation scheme (FPRAS)…
In the Ising model, we consider the problem of estimating the covariance of the spins at two specified vertices. In the ferromagnetic case, it is easy to obtain an additive approximation to this covariance by repeatedly sampling from the…
We give a fully polynomial-time randomised approximation scheme (FPRAS) for the number of bases in a bicircular matroids. This is a natural class of matroids for which counting bases exactly is #P-hard and yet approximate counting can be…
We consider a family of quantum spin systems which includes as special cases the ferromagnetic XY model and ferromagnetic Ising model on any graph, with or without a transverse magnetic field. We prove that the partition function of any…
Approximating the partition function of the ferromagnetic Ising model with general external fields is known to be #BIS-hard in the worst case, even for bounded-degree graphs, and it is widely believed that no polynomial-time approximation…
We study the problem of approximating the Ising model partition function with complex parameters on bounded degree graphs. We establish a deterministic polynomial-time approximation scheme for the partition function when the interactions…
We consider the problem of approximating certain combinatorial polynomials. First, we consider the problem of approximating the Tutte polynomial of a binary matroid with parameters q>= 2 and gamma. (Relative to the classical (x,y)…
In a seminal paper (Weitz, 2006), Weitz gave a deterministic fully polynomial approximation scheme for count- ing exponentially weighted independent sets (equivalently, approximating the partition function of the hard-core model from…
We present a polynomial-time Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm for estimating the partition function of the antiferromagnetic Ising model on any line graph. The analysis of the algorithm exploits the "winding" technology devised by…
Given a graphical model (GM), computing its partition function is the most essential inference task, but it is computationally intractable in general. To address the issue, iterative approximation algorithms exploring certain local…
Recent inapproximability results of Sly (2010), together with an approximation algorithm presented by Weitz (2006) establish a beautiful picture for the computational complexity of approximating the partition function of the hard-core…
The matrix permanent belongs to the complexity class #P-Complete. It is generally believed to be computationally infeasible for large problem sizes, and significant research has been done on approximation algorithms for the matrix…
The ferromagnetic Ising model is a model of a magnetic material and a central topic in statistical physics. It also plays a starring role in the algorithmic study of approximate counting: approximating the partition function of the…
We study the approximability of the four-vertex model, a special case of the six-vertex model.We prove that, despite being NP-hard to approximate in the worst case, the four-vertex model admits a fully polynomial randomized approximation…
Is Fully Polynomial-time Randomized Approximation Scheme (FPRAS) for a problem via an MCMC algorithm possible when it is known that rapid mixing provably fails? We introduce several weight-preserving maps for the eight-vertex model on…
Normal factor graph duality offers new possibilities for Monte Carlo algorithms in graphical models. Specifically, we consider the problem of estimating the partition function of the ferromagnetic Ising and Potts models by Monte Carlo…
In this paper we give a fully polynomial randomized approximation scheme (FPRAS) for the number of all matchings in hypergraphs belonging to a class of sparse, uniform hypergraphs. Our method is based on a generalization of the canonical…
We present a new approach to a classical problem in statistical physics: estimating the partition function and other thermodynamic quantities of the ferromagnetic Ising model. Markov chain Monte Carlo methods for this problem have been…
The class of two-spin systems contains several important models, including random independent sets and the Ising model of statistical physics. We show that for both the hard-core (independent set) model and the anti-ferromagnetic Ising…