Related papers: Estimating the spectral gap of a trace-class Marko…
We establish Bernstein's inequalities for functions of general (general-state-space and possibly non-reversible) Markov chains. These inequalities achieve sharp variance proxies and encompass the classical Bernstein inequality for…
Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling is an important and commonly used tool for the analysis of hierarchical models. Nevertheless, practitioners generally have two options for MCMC: utilize existing software that generates a black-box…
The basic question in perturbation analysis of Markov chains is: how do small changes in the transition kernels of Markov chains translate to chains in their stationary distributions? Many papers on the subject have shown, roughly, that the…
Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms are based on the construction of a Markov chain with transition probabilities leaving invariant a probability distribution of interest. In this work, we look at these transition probabilities as…
The Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method is used to evaluate the imaginary-time path integral of a quantum oscillator with a potential that includes both a quadratic term and a quartic term whose coupling is varied by several orders of…
We present an efficient algorithm for the inference of stochastic block models in large networks. The algorithm can be used as an optimized Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method, with a fast mixing time and a much reduced susceptibility to…
We define the spectral gap of a Markov chain on a finite state space as the second-smallest singular value of the generator of the chain, generalizing the usual definition of spectral gap for reversible chains. We then define the relaxation…
Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) is a sampling-based method for estimating features of probability distributions. MCMC methods produce a serially correlated, yet representative, sample from the desired distribution. As such it can be…
The spectral gap $\gamma$ of an ergodic and reversible Markov chain is an important parameter measuring the asymptotic rate of convergence. In applications, the transition matrix $P$ may be unknown, yet one sample of the chain up to a fixed…
We present a spectral analysis for matrix scaling and operator scaling. We prove that if the input matrix or operator has a spectral gap, then a natural gradient flow has linear convergence. This implies that a simple gradient descent…
In this paper we investigate the continuum limits of a class of Markov chains. The investigation of such limits is motivated by the desire to model very large networks. We show that under some conditions, a sequence of Markov chains…
Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods are employed to sample from a given distribution of interest, whenever either the distribution does not exist in closed form, or, if it does, no efficient method to simulate an independent sample from…
Let $(E,\mathcal F,\mu)$ be a probability space, and let $P$ be a Markov operator on $L^2(\mu)$ with $1$ a simple eigenvalue such that $\mu P=\mu$ (i.e. $\mu$ is an invariant probability measure of $P$). Then $\hat P:=\ff 1 2 (P+P^*)$ has a…
Performing numerical integration when the integrand itself cannot be evaluated point-wise is a challenging task that arises in statistical analysis, notably in Bayesian inference for models with intractable likelihood functions. Markov…
In this work, we characterise the statistics of Markov chains by constructing an associated sequence of periodic differential operators. Studying the density of states of these operators reveals the absolutely continuous invariant measure…
In Markov-chain Monte Carlo simulations, estimating statistical errors or confidence intervals of numerically obtained values is an essential task. In this paper, we review several methods for error estimation, such as simple empirical…
The basic problem in equilibrium statistical mechanics is to compute phase space average, in which Monte Carlo method plays a very important role. We begin with a review of nonlocal algorithms for Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation in…
We show that the minimax sample complexity for estimating the pseudo-spectral gap $\gamma_{\mathsf{ps}}$ of an ergodic Markov chain in constant multiplicative error is of the order of $$\tilde{\Theta}\left( \frac{1}{\gamma_{\mathsf{ps}}…
Spectral methods have proven to be a highly effective tool in understanding the intrinsic geometry of a high-dimensional data set $\left\{x_i \right\}_{i=1}^{n} \subset \mathbb{R}^d$. The key ingredient is the construction of a Markov chain…
We develop a new bidirectional algorithm for estimating Markov chain multi-step transition probabilities: given a Markov chain, we want to estimate the probability of hitting a given target state in $\ell$ steps after starting from a given…