20 research outputs found
Polynomial Mixing of the Edge-Flip Markov Chain for Unbiased Dyadic Tilings
We give the first polynomial upper bound on the mixing time of the edge-flip Markov chain for unbiased dyadic tilings, resolving an open problem originally posed by Janson, Randall, and Spencer in 2002. A dyadic tiling of size n is a tiling of the unit square by n non-overlapping dyadic rectangles, each of area 1/n, where a dyadic rectangle is any rectangle that can be written in the form [a2^{-s}, (a+1)2^{-s}] x [b2^{-t}, (b+1)2^{-t}] for a,b,s,t nonnegative integers. The edge-flip Markov chain selects a random edge of the tiling and replaces it with its perpendicular bisector if doing so yields a valid dyadic tiling. Specifically, we show that the relaxation time of the edge-flip Markov chain for dyadic tilings is at most O(n^{4.09}), which implies that the mixing time is at most O(n^{5.09}). We complement this by showing that the relaxation time is at least Omega(n^{1.38}), improving upon the previously best lower bound of Omega(n*log n) coming from the diameter of the chain
Good approximate quantum LDPC codes from spacetime circuit Hamiltonians
We study approximate quantum low-density parity-check (QLDPC) codes, which
are approximate quantum error-correcting codes specified as the ground space of
a frustration-free local Hamiltonian, whose terms do not necessarily commute.
Such codes generalize stabilizer QLDPC codes, which are exact quantum
error-correcting codes with sparse, low-weight stabilizer generators (i.e. each
stabilizer generator acts on a few qubits, and each qubit participates in a few
stabilizer generators). Our investigation is motivated by an important question
in Hamiltonian complexity and quantum coding theory: do stabilizer QLDPC codes
with constant rate, linear distance, and constant-weight stabilizers exist?
We show that obtaining such optimal scaling of parameters (modulo
polylogarithmic corrections) is possible if we go beyond stabilizer codes: we
prove the existence of a family of approximate QLDPC
codes that encode logical qubits into physical
qubits with distance and approximation infidelity
. The code space is
stabilized by a set of 10-local noncommuting projectors, with each physical
qubit only participating in projectors. We
prove the existence of an efficient encoding map, and we show that arbitrary
Pauli errors can be locally detected by circuits of polylogarithmic depth.
Finally, we show that the spectral gap of the code Hamiltonian is
by analyzing a spacetime circuit-to-Hamiltonian
construction for a bitonic sorting network architecture that is spatially local
in dimensions.Comment: 51 pages, 13 figure
The effects of bias on sampling algorithms and combinatorial objects
Markov chains are algorithms that can provide critical information from exponentially large sets efficiently through random sampling. These algorithms are ubiquitous across numerous scientific and engineering disciplines, including statistical physics, biology and operations research. In this thesis we solve sampling problems at the interface of theoretical computer science with applied computer science, discrete mathematics, statistical physics, chemistry and economics. A common theme throughout each of these problems is the use of bias.
The first problem we study is biased permutations which arise in the context of self-organizing lists. Here we are interested in the mixing time of a Markov chain that performs nearest neighbor transpositions in the non-uniform setting. We are given "positively biased'' probabilities for all and let . In each step, the chain chooses two adjacent elements~ and~ and exchanges their positions with probability . We define two general classes of bias and give the first proofs that the chain is rapidly mixing for both. We also demonstrate that the chain is not always rapidly mixing by constructing an example requiring exponential time to converge to equilibrium.
Next we study rectangular dissections of an lattice region into rectangles of area , where for an even integer We consider a weighted version of a natural edge flipping Markov chain where, given a parameter we would like to generate each rectangular dissection (or dyadic tiling)~ with probability proportional to where is the total edge length.
First we look at the restricted case of dyadic tilings, where each rectangle is required to have the form where and~ are nonnegative integers. Here we show there is a phase transition: when the mixing time is . The behavior for general rectangular dissections is more subtle, and we show the chain requires exponential time when and when
The last two problems we study arise directly from applications in chemistry and economics. Colloids are binary mixtures of molecules with one type of molecule suspended in another. It is believed that at low density typical configurations will be well-mixed throughout, while at high density they will separate into clusters. We characterize the high and low density phases for a general family of discrete interfering colloid models by showing that they exhibit a "clustering property" at high density and not at low density. The clustering property states that there will be a region that has very high area to perimeter ratio and very high density of one type of molecule. A special case is mixtures of squares and diamonds on which correspond to the Ising model at fixed magnetization.
Subsequently, we expanded techniques developed in the context of colloids to give a new rigorous underpinning to the Schelling model, which was proposed in 1971 by economist Thomas Schelling to understand the causes of racial segregation. Schelling considered residents of two types, where everyone prefers that the majority of his or her neighbors are of the same type. He showed through simulations that even mild preferences of this type can lead to segregation if residents move whenever they are not happy with their local environments. We generalize the Schelling model to include a broad class of bias functions determining individuals happiness or desire to move. We show that for any influence function in this class, the dynamics will be rapidly mixing and cities will be integrated if the racial bias is sufficiently low. However when the bias is sufficiently high, we show the dynamics take exponential time to mix and a large cluster of one type will form.Ph.D
A polynomial upper bound for the mixing time of edge rotations on planar maps
We consider a natural local dynamic on the set of all rooted planar maps with
edges that is in some sense analogous to "edge flip" Markov chains, which
have been considered before on a variety of combinatorial structures
(triangulations of the -gon and quadrangulations of the sphere, among
others). We provide the first polynomial upper bound for the mixing time of
this "edge rotation" chain on planar maps: we show that the spectral gap of the
edge rotation chain is bounded below by an appropriate constant times
. In doing so, we provide a partially new proof of the fact that the
same bound applies to the spectral gap of edge flips on quadrangulations, which
makes it possible to generalise a recent result of the author and Stauffer to a
chain that relates to edge rotations via Tutte's bijection