Related papers: Mixing Time for Some Adjacent Transposition Markov…
We extend our previous study of Markov chains on finite commutative rings (arXiv:1605.05089) to arbitrary finite rings with identity. At each step, we either add or multiply by a randomly chosen element of the ring, where the addition…
We study the rate of convergence of the Markov chain on $S_n$ which starts with a random $(n-k)$-cycle for a fixed $k \geq 1$, followed by random transpositions. The convergence to the stationary distribution turns out to be of order $n$.…
In this paper, we investigate the mixing time of the adjacent transposition shuffle for a deck of $N$ cards. We prove that around time $N^2\log N/(2\pi^2)$, the total variation distance to equilibrium of the deck distribution drops abruptly…
We consider Markov chains on general state spaces in stationary random environment which are defined by a random mapping that is contractive up to a bounded perturbation. We prove their convergence to a limiting law, providing convergence…
The problem of sampling from the stationary distribution of a Markov chain finds widespread applications in a variety of fields. The time required for a Markov chain to converge to its stationary distribution is known as the classical…
We consider irreducible reversible discrete time Markov chains on a finite state space. Mixing times and hitting times are fundamental parameters of the chain. We relate them by showing that the mixing time of the lazy chain is equivalent…
We investigate absorption, i.e., almost sure convergence to an absorbing state, in time-varying (non-homogeneous) discrete-time Markov chains with finite state space. We consider systems that can switch among a finite set of transition…
A wide class of ``counting'' problems have been studied in Computer Science. Three typical examples are the estimation of - (i) the permanent of an $n\times n$ 0-1 matrix, (ii) the partition function of certain $n-$ particle Statistical…
In many dynamical systems in nature, the law of the dynamics changes along with the temporal evolution of the system. These changes are often associated with the occurrence of certain events. The timing of occurrence of these events…
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…
Considering a Markov chain defined on a cycle, near-quadratic improvement of mixing is shown when only a subtle perturbation is introduced to the structure and non-reversible transition probabilities are used. More precisely, a mixing time…
The convergence rate of a Markov chain to its stationary distribution is typically assessed using the concept of total variation mixing time. However, this worst-case measure often yields pessimistic estimates and is challenging to infer…
We consider the computational task of sampling a bit string $x$ from a distribution $\pi(x)=|\langle x|\psi\rangle|^2$, where $\psi$ is the unique ground state of a local Hamiltonian $H$. Our main result describes a direct link between the…
Let $X$ be a finite set and let $G$ be a finite group acting on $X$. The group action splits $X$ into disjoint orbits. The Burnside process is a Markov chain on $X$ which has a uniform stationary distribution when the chain is lumped to…
We study the Markov chain on $\mathbf{F}_p$ obtained by applying a function $f$ and adding $\pm\gamma$ with equal probability. When $f$ is a linear function, this is the well-studied Chung--Diaconis--Graham process. We consider two cases:…
We consider nearest neighbor weighted random walks on the $d$-dimensional box $[n]^d$ that are governed by some function $g:[0,1] \ra [0,\iy)$, by which we mean that standing at $x$, a neighbor $y$ of $x$ is picked at random and the walk…
We study Markov chains for $\alpha$-orientations of plane graphs, these are orientations where the outdegree of each vertex is prescribed by the value of a given function $\alpha$. The set of $\alpha$-orientations of a plane graph has a…
In this paper we study the mixing time of a biased transpositions shuffle on a set of $N$ cards with $N/2$ cards of two types. For a parameter $0<a \le 1$, one type of card is chosen to transpose with a bias of $\frac{a}{N}$ and the other…
The mixer chain on a graph G is the following Markov chain. Place tiles on the vertices of G, each tile labeled by its corresponding vertex. A "mixer" moves randomly on the graph, at each step either moving to a randomly chosen neighbor, or…
Suppose X and Y are two independent irreducible Markov chains on n states. We consider the intersection time, which is the first time their trajectories intersect. We show for reversible and lazy chains that the total variation mixing time…