Related papers: Mixing times and moving targets

Whereas classical invariance principles for ergodic Markov chains address the situation in which the time horizon of observations is much larger than the mixing time, the quality of approximation is questionable when this is not the case…

In this paper we consider stopping problems for continuous-time Markov chains under a general risk-sensitive optimization criterion for problems with finite and infinite time horizon. More precisely our aim is to maximize the certainty…

We develop Markov chain mixing time estimates for a class of Markov chains with restricted transitions. We assume transitions may occur along a cycle of $n$ nodes and on $n^\gamma$ additional edges, where $\gamma < 1$. We find that the…

We establish conditions on sequences of graphs which ensure that the mixing times of the random walks on the graphs in the sequence converge. The main assumption is that the graphs, associated measures and heat kernels converge in a…

We consider tilings of $\mathbb{Z}^2$ by two types of squares. We are interested in the rate of convergence to the stationarity of a natural Markov chain defined for square tilings. The rate of convergence can be represented by the mixing…

For any discrete target distribution, we exploit the connection between Markov chains and Stein's method via the generator approach and express the solution of Stein's equation in terms of expected hitting time. This yields new upper bounds…

The problem of efficiently sampling from a set of (undirected, or directed) graphs with a given degree sequence has many applications. One approach to this problem uses a simple Markov chain, which we call the switch chain, to perform the…

We study the first hitting time statistics between a one-dimensional run-and-tumble particle and a target site that switches intermittently between visible and invisible phases. The two-state dynamics of the target is independent of the…

Consider the subgraph of the discrete $d$-dimensional torus of size length $N$, $d\ge3$, induced by the range of the simple random walk on the torus run until the time $uN^d$. We prove that for all $d\ge 3$ and $u>0$, the mixing time for…

We address the problem of estimating the mixing time $t_{\mathsf{mix}}$ of an arbitrary ergodic finite-state Markov chain from a single trajectory of length $m$. The reversible case was addressed by Hsu et al. [2019], who left the general…

In a model of communication in a social network described by a simple consensus model, we pose the problem of finding a subset of nodes with given cardinality and fixed consensus values that enable the fastest convergence rate to…

We study local Markov chains for sampling 3-colorings of the discrete torus $T_{L,d}={0,..., L-1}^d$. We show that there is a constant $\rho \approx .22$ such that for all even $L \geq 4$ and $d$ sufficiently large, certain local Markov…

We introduce a discrete-time search game, in which two players compete to find an object first. The object moves according to a time-varying Markov chain on finitely many states. The players know the Markov chain and the initial probability…

A deck of $n$ cards are shuffled by repeatedly taking off the top card, flipping it with probability $1/2$, and inserting it back into the deck at a random position. This process can be considered as a Markov chain on the group $B_n$ of…

We provide a general framework for computing upper bounds on mixing times of finite Markov chains when its minimal ideal is left zero. Our analysis is based on combining results by Brown and Diaconis with our previous work on stationary…

We consider a continuous-time Markov chain with a finite or countable state space. For a site y and subset H of the state space, the hitting time of y under taboo H is defined to be infinite if the process trajectory hits H before y, and…

The mixing time of the Markov chain induced by a policy limits performance in real-world continual learning scenarios. Yet, the effect of mixing times on learning in continual reinforcement learning (RL) remains underexplored. In this…

We consider a natural local dynamic on the set of all rooted planar maps with $n$ edges that is in some sense analogous to "edge flip" Markov chains, which have been considered before on a variety of combinatorial structures (triangulations…

We consider random walks in which the walk originates in one set of nodes and then continues until it reaches one or more nodes in a target set. The time required for the walk to reach the target set is of interest in understanding the…

In the absence of acceleration, the velocity formula gives "distance travelled equals speed multiplied by time". For a broad class of Markov chains such as circulant Markov chains or random walk on complete graphs, we prove a probabilistic…