Algebraic Aspects of Conditional Independence and Graphical Models

This chapter of the forthcoming Handbook of Graphical Models contains an overview of basic theorems and techniques from algebraic geometry and how they can be applied to the study of conditional independence and graphical models. It also introduces binomial ideals and some ideas from real algebraic geometry. When random variables are discrete or Gaussian, tools from computational algebraic geometry can be used to understand implications between conditional independence statements. This is accomplished by computing primary decompositions of conditional independence ideals. As examples the chapter presents in detail the graphical model of a four cycle and the intersection axiom, a certain implication of conditional independence statements. Another important problem in the area is to determine all constraints on a graphical model, for example, equations determined by trek separation. The full set of equality constraints can be determined by computing the model's vanishing ideal. The chapter illustrates these techniques and ideas with examples from the literature and provides references for further reading.Comment: 20 pages, 1 figur

Non-vanishing of Betti numbers of edge ideals and complete bipartite subgraphs

Given a finite simple graph one can associate the edge ideal. In this paper we prove that a graded Betti number of the edge ideal does not vanish if the original graph contains a set of complete bipartite subgraphs with some conditions. Also we give a combinatorial description for the projective dimension of the edge ideals of unmixed bipartite graphs.Comment: 19 pages; v2: we added Section 7 and revised mainly Sections 5 and 6; v3 improves the exposition throughou