61 research outputs found
Correlation Decay up to Uniqueness in Spin Systems
We give a complete characterization of the two-state anti-ferromagnetic spin
systems which are of strong spatial mixing on general graphs. We show that a
two-state anti-ferromagnetic spin system is of strong spatial mixing on all
graphs of maximum degree at most \Delta if and only if the system has a unique
Gibbs measure on infinite regular trees of degree up to \Delta, where \Delta
can be either bounded or unbounded. As a consequence, there exists an FPTAS for
the partition function of a two-state anti-ferromagnetic spin system on graphs
of maximum degree at most \Delta when the uniqueness condition is satisfied on
infinite regular trees of degree up to \Delta. In particular, an FPTAS exists
for arbitrary graphs if the uniqueness is satisfied on all infinite regular
trees. This covers as special cases all previous algorithmic results for
two-state anti-ferromagnetic systems on general-structure graphs.
Combining with the FPRAS for two-state ferromagnetic spin systems of
Jerrum-Sinclair and Goldberg-Jerrum-Paterson, and the very recent hardness
results of Sly-Sun and independently of Galanis-Stefankovic-Vigoda, this gives
a complete classification, except at the phase transition boundary, of the
approximability of all two-state spin systems, on either degree-bounded
families of graphs or family of all graphs.Comment: 27 pages, submitted for publicatio
A Simple FPTAS for Counting Edge Covers
An edge cover of a graph is a set of edges such that every vertex has at
least an adjacent edge in it. Previously, approximation algorithm for counting
edge covers is only known for 3 regular graphs and it is randomized. We design
a very simple deterministic fully polynomial-time approximation scheme (FPTAS)
for counting the number of edge covers for any graph. Our main technique is
correlation decay, which is a powerful tool to design FPTAS for counting
problems. In order to get FPTAS for general graphs without degree bound, we
make use of a stronger notion called computationally efficient correlation
decay, which is introduced in [Li, Lu, Yin SODA 2012].Comment: To appear in SODA 201
Sublinear-Time Algorithms for Monomer-Dimer Systems on Bounded Degree Graphs
For a graph , let be the partition function of the
monomer-dimer system defined by , where is the
number of matchings of size in . We consider graphs of bounded degree
and develop a sublinear-time algorithm for estimating at an
arbitrary value within additive error with high
probability. The query complexity of our algorithm does not depend on the size
of and is polynomial in , and we also provide a lower bound
quadratic in for this problem. This is the first analysis of a
sublinear-time approximation algorithm for a # P-complete problem. Our
approach is based on the correlation decay of the Gibbs distribution associated
with . We show that our algorithm approximates the probability
for a vertex to be covered by a matching, sampled according to this Gibbs
distribution, in a near-optimal sublinear time. We extend our results to
approximate the average size and the entropy of such a matching within an
additive error with high probability, where again the query complexity is
polynomial in and the lower bound is quadratic in .
Our algorithms are simple to implement and of practical use when dealing with
massive datasets. Our results extend to other systems where the correlation
decay is known to hold as for the independent set problem up to the critical
activity
Approximate Capacities of Two-Dimensional Codes by Spatial Mixing
We apply several state-of-the-art techniques developed in recent advances of
counting algorithms and statistical physics to study the spatial mixing
property of the two-dimensional codes arising from local hard (independent set)
constraints, including: hard-square, hard-hexagon, read/write isolated memory
(RWIM), and non-attacking kings (NAK). For these constraints, the strong
spatial mixing would imply the existence of polynomial-time approximation
scheme (PTAS) for computing the capacity. It was previously known for the
hard-square constraint the existence of strong spatial mixing and PTAS. We show
the existence of strong spatial mixing for hard-hexagon and RWIM constraints by
establishing the strong spatial mixing along self-avoiding walks, and
consequently we give PTAS for computing the capacities of these codes. We also
show that for the NAK constraint, the strong spatial mixing does not hold along
self-avoiding walks
FPTAS for Hardcore and Ising Models on Hypergraphs
Hardcore and Ising models are two most important families of two state spin
systems in statistic physics. Partition function of spin systems is the center
concept in statistic physics which connects microscopic particles and their
interactions with their macroscopic and statistical properties of materials
such as energy, entropy, ferromagnetism, etc. If each local interaction of the
system involves only two particles, the system can be described by a graph. In
this case, fully polynomial-time approximation scheme (FPTAS) for computing the
partition function of both hardcore and anti-ferromagnetic Ising model was
designed up to the uniqueness condition of the system. These result are the
best possible since approximately computing the partition function beyond this
threshold is NP-hard. In this paper, we generalize these results to general
physics systems, where each local interaction may involves multiple particles.
Such systems are described by hypergraphs. For hardcore model, we also provide
FPTAS up to the uniqueness condition, and for anti-ferromagnetic Ising model,
we obtain FPTAS where a slightly stronger condition holds
FPTAS for Counting Monotone CNF
A monotone CNF formula is a Boolean formula in conjunctive normal form where
each variable appears positively. We design a deterministic fully
polynomial-time approximation scheme (FPTAS) for counting the number of
satisfying assignments for a given monotone CNF formula when each variable
appears in at most clauses. Equivalently, this is also an FPTAS for
counting set covers where each set contains at most elements. If we allow
variables to appear in a maximum of clauses (or sets to contain
elements), it is NP-hard to approximate it. Thus, this gives a complete
understanding of the approximability of counting for monotone CNF formulas. It
is also an important step towards a complete characterization of the
approximability for all bounded degree Boolean #CSP problems. In addition, we
study the hypergraph matching problem, which arises naturally towards a
complete classification of bounded degree Boolean #CSP problems, and show an
FPTAS for counting 3D matchings of hypergraphs with maximum degree .
Our main technique is correlation decay, a powerful tool to design
deterministic FPTAS for counting problems defined by local constraints among a
number of variables. All previous uses of this design technique fall into two
categories: each constraint involves at most two variables, such as independent
set, coloring, and spin systems in general; or each variable appears in at most
two constraints, such as matching, edge cover, and holant problem in general.
The CNF problems studied here have more complicated structures than these
problems and require new design and proof techniques. As it turns out, the
technique we developed for the CNF problem also works for the hypergraph
matching problem. We believe that it may also find applications in other CSP or
more general counting problems.Comment: 24 pages, 2 figures. version 1=>2: minor edits, highlighted the
picture of set cover/packing, and an implication of our previous result in 3D
matchin
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