Related papers: On Mixing of Markov Chains: Coupling, Spectral Ind…
This monograph is an exposition on an exciting new technique known as spectral independence, which has been instrumental in analyzing the convergence rate of Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms. For a high-dimensional distribution…
We prove an optimal $O(n \log n)$ mixing time of the Glauber dynamics for the Ising models with edge activity $\beta \in \left(\frac{\Delta-2}{\Delta}, \frac{\Delta}{\Delta-2}\right)$. This mixing time bound holds even if the maximum degree…
Sampling graph colorings via local Markov chains is a central problem in approximate counting and Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC). We address the problem of sampling a random $k$-coloring of a graph with maximum degree $\Delta$. The…
Let $G$ be a graph on $n$ vertices of maximum degree $\Delta$. We show that, for any $\delta > 0$, the down-up walk on independent sets of size $k \leq (1-\delta)\alpha_c(\Delta)n$ mixes in time $O_{\Delta,\delta}(k\log{n})$, thereby…
We study the mixing time of Glauber dynamics on monotone systems. For monotone systems satisfying the entropic independence condition, we prove a new mixing time comparison result for Glauber dynamics. For concrete applications, we obtain…
We present improved bounds for randomly sampling $k$-colorings of graphs with maximum degree $\Delta$; our results hold without any further assumptions on the graph. The Glauber dynamics is a simple single-site update Markov chain. Jerrum…
We address the convergence rate of Markov chains for randomly generating an edge coloring of a given tree. Our focus is on the Glauber dynamics which updates the color at a randomly chosen edge in each step. For a tree $T$ with $n$ vertices…
We prove an upper bound on the total variation mixing time of a finite Markov chain in terms of the absolute spectral gap and the number of elements in the state space. Unlike results requiring reversibility or irreducibility, this bound is…
We give the first comprehensive analysis of the effect of boundary conditions on the mixing time of the Glauber dynamics in the so-called Bethe approximation. Specifically, we show that spectral gap and the log-Sobolev constant of the…
We give a new method for analysing the mixing time of a Markov chain using path coupling with stopping times. We apply this approach to two hypergraph problems. We show that the Glauber dynamics for independent sets in a hypergraph mixes…
We address the problem of estimating the mixing time of a Markov chain from a single trajectory of observations. Unlike most previous works which employed Hilbert space methods to estimate spectral gaps, we opt for an approach based on…
We prove an optimal $\Omega(n^{-1})$ lower bound for modified log-Sobolev (MLS) constant of the Glauber dynamics for anti-ferromagnetic two-spin systems with $n$ vertices in the tree uniqueness regime. Specifically, this optimal MLS bound…
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 study the mixing properties of the single-site Markov chain known as the Glauber dynamics for sampling $k$-colorings of a sparse random graph $G(n,d/n)$ for constant $d$. The best known rapid mixing results for general graphs are in…
The Swendsen-Wang dynamics is a popular algorithm for sampling from the Gibbs distribution for the ferromagnetic Ising model on a graph $G=(V,E)$. The dynamics is a "global" Markov chain which is conjectured to converge to equilibrium in…
We study the mixing time of systematic scan Markov chains on finite spin systems. It is known that, in a single site setting, the mixing time of systematic scan can be bounded in terms of the influences sites have on each other. We…
This paper formalizes connections between stability of polynomials and convergence rates of Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms. We prove that if a (multivariate) partition function is nonzero in a region around a real point…
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…
\emph{Sampling} constitutes an important tool in a variety of areas: from machine learning and combinatorial optimization to computational physics and biology. A central class of sampling algorithms is the \emph{Markov Chain Monte Carlo}…
Mixing of finite time-homogeneous Markov chains is well understood nowadays, with a rich set of techniques to estimate their mixing time. In this paper, we study the mixing time of random walks in dynamic random environments. To that end,…