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Inapproximability for Antiferromagnetic Spin Systems in the Tree Non-Uniqueness Region
A remarkable connection has been established for antiferromagnetic 2-spin
systems, including the Ising and hard-core models, showing that the
computational complexity of approximating the partition function for graphs
with maximum degree D undergoes a phase transition that coincides with the
statistical physics uniqueness/non-uniqueness phase transition on the infinite
D-regular tree. Despite this clear picture for 2-spin systems, there is little
known for multi-spin systems. We present the first analog of the above
inapproximability results for multi-spin systems.
The main difficulty in previous inapproximability results was analyzing the
behavior of the model on random D-regular bipartite graphs, which served as the
gadget in the reduction. To this end one needs to understand the moments of the
partition function. Our key contribution is connecting: (i) induced matrix
norms, (ii) maxima of the expectation of the partition function, and (iii)
attractive fixed points of the associated tree recursions (belief propagation).
The view through matrix norms allows a simple and generic analysis of the
second moment for any spin system on random D-regular bipartite graphs. This
yields concentration results for any spin system in which one can analyze the
maxima of the first moment. The connection to fixed points of the tree
recursions enables an analysis of the maxima of the first moment for specific
models of interest.
For k-colorings we prove that for even k, in the tree non-uniqueness region
(which corresponds to k<D) it is NP-hard, unless NP=RP, to approximate the
number of colorings for triangle-free D-regular graphs. Our proof extends to
the antiferromagnetic Potts model, and, in fact, to every antiferromagnetic
model under a mild condition
Spectral radius of finite and infinite planar graphs and of graphs of bounded genus
It is well known that the spectral radius of a tree whose maximum degree is
cannot exceed . In this paper we derive similar bounds for
arbitrary planar graphs and for graphs of bounded genus. It is proved that a
the spectral radius of a planar graph of maximum vertex degree
satisfies . This result is
best possible up to the additive constant--we construct an (infinite) planar
graph of maximum degree , whose spectral radius is . This
generalizes and improves several previous results and solves an open problem
proposed by Tom Hayes. Similar bounds are derived for graphs of bounded genus.
For every , these bounds can be improved by excluding as a
subgraph. In particular, the upper bound is strengthened for 5-connected
graphs. All our results hold for finite as well as for infinite graphs.
At the end we enhance the graph decomposition method introduced in the first
part of the paper and apply it to tessellations of the hyperbolic plane. We
derive bounds on the spectral radius that are close to the true value, and even
in the simplest case of regular tessellations of type we derive an
essential improvement over known results, obtaining exact estimates in the
first order term and non-trivial estimates for the second order asymptotics
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