Related papers: Biased random-to-top shuffling

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…

We prove a Chernoff-type bound for sums of matrix-valued random variables sampled via a regular (aperiodic and irreducible) finite Markov chain. Specially, consider a random walk on a regular Markov chain and a Hermitian matrix-valued…

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 $n$…

This paper explores the mixing time of the random transposition walk on permutations with one-sided interval restrictions. In particular, we're interested in the notion of cutoff, a phenomenon which occurs when mixing occurs in a window of…

We investigate a one-time single shelf shuffle by establishing the position matrix explicitly. In some cases, we prove a no-feedback optimal guessing strategy. A general no-feedback strategy is conjectured, and asymptotics for the expected…

In this paper, we study a biased version of the nearest-neighbor transposition Markov chain on the set of permutations where neighboring elements $i$ and $j$ are placed in order $(i,j)$ with probability $p_{i,j}$. Our goal is to identify…

We study how many riffle shuffles are required to mix n cards if only certain features of the deck are of interest, e.g. suits disregarded or only the colors of interest. For these features, the number of shuffles drops from 3/2 log_2(n) to…

Let $P$ be a bistochastic matrix of size $n$, and let $\Pi$ be a permutation matrix of size $n$. In this paper, we are interested in the mixing time of the Markov chain whose transition matrix is given by $Q=P\Pi$. In other words, the chain…

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 study the problem of learning a most biased coin among a set of coins by tossing the coins adaptively. The goal is to minimize the number of tosses until we identify a coin i* whose posterior probability of being most biased is at least…

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…

We introduce and study a new class of optimal switching problems, namely switching problem with controlled randomisation, where some extra-randomness impacts the choice of switching modes and associated costs. We show that the optimal value…

We consider reinforcement learning in changing Markov Decision Processes where both the state-transition probabilities and the reward functions may vary over time. For this problem setting, we propose an algorithm using a sliding window…

We show bounds on total variation and $L^{\infty}$ mixing times, spectral gap and magnitudes of the complex valued eigenvalues of a general (non-reversible non-lazy) Markov chain with a minor expansion property. This leads to the first…

Computer simulations of first-order phase transitions using standard toroidal boundary conditions are generally hampered by exponential slowing down. This is partly due to interface formation, and partly due to shape transitions. The latter…

We prove an $\widetilde O(n^2)$ bound for the relaxation time and the log-Sobolev time (inverse log-Sobolev constant) of the classical triangulation flip chain on a convex $(n+2)$-gon, implying a mixing time of $\widetilde O(n^2)$. The…

Consider a uniformly random deck consisting of cards labelled by numbers from $1$ through $n$, possibly with repeats. A guesser guesses the top card, after which it is revealed and removed and the game continues. What is the expected number…

The transpose top-$2$ with random shuffle (J. Theoret. Probab., 2020) is a lazy random walk on the alternating group $A_n$ generated by $3$-cycles of the form $(\star,n-1,n)$ and $(\star,n,n-1)$. We obtain the limit profile of this random…

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…

Consider a real hyperplane arrangement and let $\mathcal{C}$ denote the occurring chambers. Bidigare, Hanlon and Rockmore introduced a Markov chain on $\mathcal{C}$ which is a generalization of some card shuffling models used in computer…