Related papers: A Phase Transition For Repeated K-Averages

We present an affine-invariant random walk for drawing uniform random samples from a convex body $\mathcal{K} \subset \mathbb{R}^n$ that uses maximum volume inscribed ellipsoids, known as John's ellipsoids, for the proposal distribution.…

Sharpening (a particular case of) a result of Szemeredi and Vu and extending earlier results of Sarkozy and ourselves, we find, subject to some technical restrictions, a sharp threshold for the number of integer sets needed for their sumset…

We study stochastic approximation algorithms with Markovian noise and constant step-size $\alpha$. We develop a method based on infinitesimal generator comparisons to study the bias of the algorithm, which is the expected difference between…

We suppose we are given a list of points $x_1, \dots, x_n \in \mathbb{R}$, a target probability measure $\mu$ and are asked to add additional points $x_{n+1}, \dots, x_{n+m}$ so that $x_1, \dots, x_{n+m}$ is as close as possible to the…

Let $K(=K_{n,\theta})$ be a positive integer-valued random variable whose distribution is given by ${\rm P}(K = x) = \bar{s}(n,x) \theta^x/(\theta)_n$ $(x=1,\ldots,n) $, where $\theta$ is a positive number, $n$ is a positive integer,…

This paper considers time-average stochastic optimization, where a time average decision vector, an average of decision vectors chosen in every time step from a time-varying (possibly non-convex) set, minimizes a convex objective function…

We analyze particle number fluctuations in the crossover region near the critical endpoint of a first-order phase transition by utilizing molecular dynamics simulations of the classical Lennard-Jones fluid. We extend our previous study…

This article provides the first procedure for computing a fully data-dependent interval that traps the mixing time $t_{\text{mix}}$ of a finite reversible ergodic Markov chain at a prescribed confidence level. The interval is computed from…

Running a random walk in a convex body $K\subseteq\mathbb{R}^n$ is a standard approach to sample approximately uniformly from the body. The requirement is that from a suitable initial distribution, the distribution of the walk comes close…

We consider the fundamental problem of internally sorting a sequence of $n$ elements. In its best theoretical setting QuickMergesort, a combination Quicksort with Mergesort with a Median-of-$\sqrt{n}$ pivot selection, requires at most $n…

Over the last half century the liquid-gas phase transition and the magnetization phase transition have come to be well understood. After an order parameter, $r$, is defined, it can be derived how $r=0$ for $T>T_c$ and how $r \propto (T_c -…

Consider a set $X\subseteq \mathbb{R}^d$ which is 1-dense, namely, it intersects every unit ball. We show that we can get from any point to any other point in $\mathbb{R}^d$ in $n$ steps so that the intermediate points are in $X$, and the…

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 prove that if one has k non-intersecting arithmetic progressions of integers, with common differences 2 <= q_1,...,q_k <= x, then k < x exp((-1/6 + o(1)) sqrt(log x loglog x)). This improves a result of Szemeredi and Erdos.

We consider dynamical percolation on the complete graph $K_n$, where each edge refreshes its state at rate $\mu \ll 1/n$, and is then declared open with probability $p = \lambda/n$ where $\lambda > 1$. We study a random walk on this…

Let $S=(d_1,d_2,d_3, \ldots )$ be an infinite sequence of rolls of independent fair dice. For an integer $k \geq 1$, let $L_k=L_k(S)$ be the smallest $i$ so that there are $k$ integers $j \leq i$ for which $\sum_{t=1}^j d_t$ is a prime.…

We compute the limiting distribution, as n approaches infinity, of the number of cycles of length between gamma n and delta n in a permutation of [n] chosen uniformly at random, for constants gamma, delta such that 1/(k+1) <= gamma < delta…

The (standard) average mixing matrix of a continuous-time quantum walk is computed by taking the expected value of the mixing matrices of the walk under the uniform sampling distribution on the real line. In this paper we consider…

One of the greatest algorithms of all time is Quicksort. Its average running time is famously O(nlog(n)), and its variance, less famously, is O(n^2) (hence its standard deviation is O(n)). But what about higher moments? Here we find…

The best known lower and upper bounds on the mixing time for the random-to-random insertions shuffle are $(1/2-o(1))n\log n$ and $(2+o(1))n\log n$. A long standing open problem is to prove that the mixing time exhibits a cutoff. In…