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We study the computational complexity of estimating local observables for Gibbs distributions. A simple combinatorial example is the average size of an independent set in a graph. In a recent work, we established NP-hardness of…
We study the computational complexity of approximately counting the number of independent sets of a graph with maximum degree Delta. More generally, for an input graph G=(V,E) and an activity lambda>0, we are interested in the quantity…
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 determine the computational complexity of approximately counting and sampling independent sets of a given size in bounded-degree graphs. That is, we identify a critical density $\alpha_c(\Delta)$ and provide (i) for $\alpha <…
We study the complexity of approximating the independent set polynomial $Z_G(\lambda)$ of a graph $G$ with maximum degree $\Delta$ when the activity $\lambda$ is a complex number. This problem is already well understood when $\lambda$ is…
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…
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 consider the problem of partitioning a graph into a non-fixed number of non-overlapping subgraphs of maximum density. The density of a partition is the sum of the densities of the subgraphs, where the density of a subgraph is its average…
An elimination tree of a connected graph $G$ is a rooted tree on the vertices of $G$ obtained by choosing a root $v$ and recursing on the connected components of $G-v$ to obtain the subtrees of $v$. The graph associahedron of $G$ is a…
We study the hard-core model defined on independent sets of an input graph where the independent sets are weighted by a parameter $\lambda>0$. For constant $\Delta$, previous work of Weitz (2006) established an FPTAS for the partition…
We study the problem of approximating the value of the matching polynomial on graphs with edge parameter $\gamma$, where $\gamma$ takes arbitrary values in the complex plane. When $\gamma$ is a positive real, Jerrum and Sinclair showed that…
Counting the independent sets of a graph is a classical #P-complete problem, even in the bipartite case. We give an exponential-time approximation scheme for this problem which is faster than the best known algorithm for the exact problem.…
We study the problem of approximately counting matchings in hypergraphs of bounded maximum degree and maximum size of hyperedges. With an activity parameter $\lambda$, each matching $M$ is assigned a weight $\lambda^{|M|}$. The counting…
We give an FPTAS for computing the number of matchings of size $k$ in a graph $G$ of maximum degree $\Delta$ on $n$ vertices, for all $k \le (1-\delta)m^*(G)$, where $\delta>0$ is fixed and $m^*(G)$ is the matching number of $G$, and an…
The hardcore model is a model of lattice gas systems which has received much attention in statistical physics, probability theory and theoretical computer science. It is the probability distribution over independent sets $I$ of a graph…
We prove a hardness of sampling result for the anti-ferromagnetic Ising model on random graphs of average degree $d$ for large constant $d$, proving that when the normalized inverse temperature satisfies $\beta>1$ (asymptotically…
The problem of (approximately) counting the independent sets of a bipartite graph (#BIS) is the canonical approximate counting problem that is complete in the intermediate complexity class #RH\Pi_1. It is believed that #BIS does not have an…
We study the Independent Set (IS) problem in $H$-free graphs, i.e., graphs excluding some fixed graph $H$ as an induced subgraph. We prove several inapproximability results both for polynomial-time and parameterized algorithms.…
We consider local Markov chain Monte-Carlo algorithms for sampling from the weighted distribution of independent sets with activity $\l$, where the weight of an independent set $I$ is $\l^{|I|}$. A recent result has established that Gibbs…
Counting the number of independent sets for a bipartite graph (#BIS) plays a crucial role in the study of approximate counting. It has been conjectured that there is no fully polynomial-time (randomized) approximation scheme (FPTAS/FPRAS)…