Related papers: Torpid Mixing of Markov Chains for the Six-vertex …
The six-vertex model in statistical physics is a weighted generalization of the ice model on $\mathbb{Z}^2$ (i.e., Eulerian orientations) and the zero-temperature three-state Potts model (i.e., proper three-colorings). The phase diagram of…
Glauber dynamics is a powerful tool to generate randomized, approximate solutions to combinatorially difficult problems. Applications include Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulation and distributed scheduling for wireless networks. In…
The six-vertex model is an important model in statistical physics and has deep connections with counting problems. There have been some fully polynomial randomized approximation schemes (FPRAS) for the six-vertex model [30, 10], which all…
We provide an optimally mixing Markov chain for 6-colorings of the square lattice on rectangular regions with free, fixed, or toroidal boundary conditions. This implies that the uniform distribution on the set of such colorings has strong…
Exponential random graph models have become increasingly important in the study of modern networks ranging from social networks, economic networks, to biological networks. They seek to capture a wide variety of common network tendencies…
We analyze the mixing time of a natural local Markov chain (the Glauber dynamics) on configurations of the solid-on-solid model of statistical physics. This model has been proposed, among other things, as an idealization of the behavior of…
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…
We study the single-site Glauber dynamics for the fugacity $\lambda$, Hard-core model on the random graph $G(n, d/n)$. We show that for the typical instances of the random graph $G(n,d/n)$ and for fugacity $\lambda <…
A 1-2 model configuration is a subset of edges of a hexagonal lattice satisfying the constraint that each vertex is incident to 1 or 2 edges. We introduce Markov chains to sample the 1-2 model configurations on 2D hexagonal lattice and…
Given a graph $G$, the hard-core model defines a probability distribution over its independent sets, assigning to each set of size $k$ a probability of $\frac{\lambda^k}{Z}$, where $\lambda>0$ is a parameter known as the \emph{fugacity} and…
The preparation of the stationary distribution of irreducible, time-reversible Markov chains is a fundamental building block in many heuristic approaches to algorithmically hard problems. It has been conjectured that quantum analogs of…
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…
The switch chain is a well-known Markov chain for sampling directed graphs with a given degree sequence. While not ergodic in general, we show that it is ergodic for regular degree sequences. We then prove that the switch chain is rapidly…
We show how to combine Fourier analysis with coupling arguments to bound the mixing times of a variety of Markov chains. The mixing time is the number of steps a Markov chain takes to approach its equilibrium distribution. One application…
We present an algorithm for learning mixtures of Markov chains and Markov decision processes (MDPs) from short unlabeled trajectories. Specifically, our method handles mixtures of Markov chains with optional control input by going through a…
We study distributed versions of Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms for generating random $k$-colorings of an input graph with maximum degree $\Delta$. In the sequential setting, the Glauber dynamics is the simple MCMC algorithm…
We study a simple Markov chain, the switch chain, on the set of all perfect matchings in a bipartite graph. This Markov chain was proposed by Diaconis, Graham and Holmes as a possible approach to a sampling problem arising in Statistics. We…
We give a new rapid mixing result for a natural random walk on the independent sets of a graph $G$. We show that when $G$ has bounded treewidth, this random walk -- known as the Glauber dynamics for the hardcore model -- mixes rapidly for…
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…
Let 0<\alpha<1/2. We show that the mixing time of a continuous-time reversible Markov chain on a finite state space is about as large as the largest expected hitting time of a subset of stationary measure at least \alpha of the state space.…