Dynamics of bootstrap percolation

Bootstrap percolation transition may be first order or second order, or it may have a mixed character where a first order drop in the order parameter is preceded by critical fluctuations. Recent studies have indicated that the mixed transition is characterized by power law avalanches, while the continuous transition is characterized by truncated avalanches in a related sequential bootstrap process. We explain this behavior on the basis of a through analytical and numerical study of the avalanche distributions on a Bethe lattice.Comment: Proceedings of the International Workshop and Conference on Statistical Physics Approaches to Multidisciplinary Problems, IIT Guwahati, India, 7-13 January 200

Ising formulations of many NP problems

We provide Ising formulations for many NP-complete and NP-hard problems, including all of Karp's 21 NP-complete problems. This collects and extends mappings to the Ising model from partitioning, covering and satisfiability. In each case, the required number of spins is at most cubic in the size of the problem. This work may be useful in designing adiabatic quantum optimization algorithms.Comment: 27 pages; v2: substantial revision to intro/conclusion, many more references; v3: substantial revision and extension, to-be-published versio

The linearization problem of a binary quadratic problem and its applications

We provide several applications of the linearization problem of a binary quadratic problem. We propose a new lower bounding strategy, called the linearization-based scheme, that is based on a simple certificate for a quadratic function to be non-negative on the feasible set. Each linearization-based bound requires a set of linearizable matrices as an input. We prove that the Generalized Gilmore-Lawler bounding scheme for binary quadratic problems provides linearization-based bounds. Moreover, we show that the bound obtained from the first level reformulation linearization technique is also a type of linearization-based bound, which enables us to provide a comparison among mentioned bounds. However, the strongest linearization-based bound is the one that uses the full characterization of the set of linearizable matrices. Finally, we present a polynomial-time algorithm for the linearization problem of the quadratic shortest path problem on directed acyclic graphs. Our algorithm gives a complete characterization of the set of linearizable matrices for the quadratic shortest path problem

Computational Geometry Column 42

A compendium of thirty previously published open problems in computational geometry is presented.Comment: 7 pages; 72 reference