Related papers: The overhand shuffle mixes in $\Theta(n^2\log n)$ …

We study a family of shuffling operators on the symmetric group $S_n$, which includes the top-to-random shuffle. The general shuffling scheme consists of removing one card at a time from the deck (according to some probability distribution)…

We prove tight mixing time bounds for natural random walks on bases of matroids, determinantal distributions, and more generally distributions associated with log-concave polynomials. For a matroid of rank $k$ on a ground set of $n$…

In this note, we demonstrate an instance of bounded-degree graphs of size $n$, for which the total variation mixing time for the random walk is decreased by a factor of $\log n/ \log\log n$ if we multiply the edge-conductances by bounded…

The well-known Gilbert-Shannon-Reeds model for riffle shuffles assumes that the cards are initially cut 'about in half' and then riffled together. We analyze a natural variant where the initial cut is biased. Extending results of Fulman…

In 1998, Ciucu published "No-feedback card guessing for dovetail shuffles", an article which gives the optimal guessing strategy for $n$ cards ($n$ even) after $k$ riffle shuffles whenever $k>2\log_{2}\left(n\right)$. We discuss in this…

Mechanical shufflers used in many casinos employ a card shuffling scheme called \emph{shelf shuffling}. In a single-shelf shuffling, cards arrive sequentially, and each incoming card is independently placed on the top or the bottom of a…

The {\it matrix-chain multiplication} problem is a classic problem that is widely taught to illustrate dynamic programming. The textbook solution runs in $\theta(n^3)$ time. However, there is a complex $O(n \log n)$-time method \cite{HU82},…

The pairing heap is a classical heap data structure introduced in 1986 by Fredman, Sedgewick, Sleator, and Tarjan. It is remarkable both for its simplicity and for its excellent performance in practice. The "magic" of pairing heaps lies in…

The game of memory is played with a deck of n pairs of cards. The cards in each pair are identical. The deck is shuffled and the cards laid face down. A move consists of flipping over first one card then another. The cards are removed from…

We study a family of maps from $S_n \to S_n$ we call fixed point homing shuffles. These maps generalize a few known problems such as Conway's Topswops, and a card shuffling process studied by Gweneth McKinley. We show that the iterates of…

We establish the first polynomial upper bound for the mixing time of random edge flips on rooted quadrangulations: we show that the spectral gap of the edge flip Markov chain on quadrangulations with $n$ faces admits, up to constants, an…

Various card tricks involve under-down dealing, where alternatively one card is placed under the deck and the next card is dealt. We study how the cards need to be prepared in the deck to be dealt in order. The order in which the $N$ cards…

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…

For a large class of quickly mixing dynamical systems, we prove that the error in the almost sure approximation with a Brownian motion is of order O((log n)^a) with a $\ge$ 2. Specifically, we consider nonuniformly expanding maps with…

We consider the problem of sorting elements on a series of stacks, introduced by Tarjan and Knuth. We improve the asymptotic lower bound for the number of stacks necessary to sort $n$ elements to $0.561 \log_2 n + O(1)$. This is the first…

In his seminal work, Cleve [STOC '86] has proved that any $r$-round coin-flipping protocol can be efficiently biased by $\Theta(1/r)$. This lower bound was met for the two-party case by Moran, Naor, and Segev [Journal of Cryptology '16],…

We study sorting by queues that can rearrange their content by applying permutations from a predefined set. These new sorting devices are called shuffle queues and we investigate those of them corresponding to sets of permutations defining…

We consider new types of perfect shuffles wherein a deck is split in half, one half of the deck is "reversed", and then the cards are interlaced. Flip shuffles are when the reversal comes from flipping the half over so that we also need to…

What is the smallest number of random transpositions (meaning that we swap given pairs of elements with given probabilities) that we can make on an $n$-point set to ensure that each element is uniformly distributed -- in the sense that the…

We consider dynamical percolation on the $d$-dimensional discrete torus of side length $n$, $\mathbb{Z}_n^d$, where each edge refreshes its status at rate $\mu=\mu_n\le 1/2$ to be open with probability $p$. We study random walk on the…