2,202 research outputs found
Finding Any Nontrivial Coarse Correlated Equilibrium Is Hard
One of the most appealing aspects of the (coarse) correlated equilibrium
concept is that natural dynamics quickly arrive at approximations of such
equilibria, even in games with many players. In addition, there exist
polynomial-time algorithms that compute exact (coarse) correlated equilibria.
In light of these results, a natural question is how good are the (coarse)
correlated equilibria that can arise from any efficient algorithm or dynamics.
In this paper we address this question, and establish strong negative
results. In particular, we show that in multiplayer games that have a succinct
representation, it is NP-hard to compute any coarse correlated equilibrium (or
approximate coarse correlated equilibrium) with welfare strictly better than
the worst possible. The focus on succinct games ensures that the underlying
complexity question is interesting; many multiplayer games of interest are in
fact succinct. Our results imply that, while one can efficiently compute a
coarse correlated equilibrium, one cannot provide any nontrivial welfare
guarantee for the resulting equilibrium, unless P=NP. We show that analogous
hardness results hold for correlated equilibria, and persist under the
egalitarian objective or Pareto optimality.
To complement the hardness results, we develop an algorithmic framework that
identifies settings in which we can efficiently compute an approximate
correlated equilibrium with near-optimal welfare. We use this framework to
develop an efficient algorithm for computing an approximate correlated
equilibrium with near-optimal welfare in aggregative games.Comment: 21 page
Elastic constants from microscopic strain fluctuations
Fluctuations of the instantaneous local Lagrangian strain
, measured with respect to a static ``reference''
lattice, are used to obtain accurate estimates of the elastic constants of
model solids from atomistic computer simulations. The measured strains are
systematically coarse- grained by averaging them within subsystems (of size
) of a system (of total size ) in the canonical ensemble. Using a
simple finite size scaling theory we predict the behaviour of the fluctuations
as a function of and extract elastic
constants of the system {\em in the thermodynamic limit} at nonzero
temperature. Our method is simple to implement, efficient and general enough to
be able to handle a wide class of model systems including those with singular
potentials without any essential modification. We illustrate the technique by
computing isothermal elastic constants of the ``soft'' and the hard disk
triangular solids in two dimensions from molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo
simulations. We compare our results with those from earlier simulations and
density functional theory.Comment: 24 pages REVTEX, 10 .ps figures, version accepted for publication in
Physical Review
Glassy dynamics of kinetically constrained models
We review the use of kinetically constrained models (KCMs) for the study of
dynamics in glassy systems. The characteristic feature of KCMs is that they
have trivial, often non-interacting, equilibrium behaviour but interesting slow
dynamics due to restrictions on the allowed transitions between configurations.
The basic question which KCMs ask is therefore how much glassy physics can be
understood without an underlying ``equilibrium glass transition''. After a
brief review of glassy phenomenology, we describe the main model classes, which
include spin-facilitated (Ising) models, constrained lattice gases, models
inspired by cellular structures such as soap froths, models obtained via
mappings from interacting systems without constraints, and finally related
models such as urn, oscillator, tiling and needle models. We then describe the
broad range of techniques that have been applied to KCMs, including exact
solutions, adiabatic approximations, projection and mode-coupling techniques,
diagrammatic approaches and mappings to quantum systems or effective models.
Finally, we give a survey of the known results for the dynamics of KCMs both in
and out of equilibrium, including topics such as relaxation time divergences
and dynamical transitions, nonlinear relaxation, aging and effective
temperatures, cooperativity and dynamical heterogeneities, and finally
non-equilibrium stationary states generated by external driving. We conclude
with a discussion of open questions and possibilities for future work.Comment: 137 pages. Additions to section on dynamical heterogeneities (5.5,
new pages 110 and 112), otherwise minor corrections, additions and reference
updates. Version to be published in Advances in Physic
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