22,323 research outputs found
Recognising Multidimensional Euclidean Preferences
Euclidean preferences are a widely studied preference model, in which
decision makers and alternatives are embedded in d-dimensional Euclidean space.
Decision makers prefer those alternatives closer to them. This model, also
known as multidimensional unfolding, has applications in economics,
psychometrics, marketing, and many other fields. We study the problem of
deciding whether a given preference profile is d-Euclidean. For the
one-dimensional case, polynomial-time algorithms are known. We show that, in
contrast, for every other fixed dimension d > 1, the recognition problem is
equivalent to the existential theory of the reals (ETR), and so in particular
NP-hard. We further show that some Euclidean preference profiles require
exponentially many bits in order to specify any Euclidean embedding, and prove
that the domain of d-Euclidean preferences does not admit a finite forbidden
minor characterisation for any d > 1. We also study dichotomous preferencesand
the behaviour of other metrics, and survey a variety of related work.Comment: 17 page
Statistical hyperbolicity in groups
In this paper, we introduce a geometric statistic called the "sprawl" of a
group with respect to a generating set, based on the average distance in the
word metric between pairs of words of equal length. The sprawl quantifies a
certain obstruction to hyperbolicity. Group presentations with maximum sprawl
(i.e., without this obstruction) are called statistically hyperbolic. We first
relate sprawl to curvature and show that nonelementary hyperbolic groups are
statistically hyperbolic, then give some results for products, for
Diestel-Leader graphs and lamplighter groups. In free abelian groups, the word
metrics asymptotically approach norms induced by convex polytopes, causing the
study of sprawl to reduce to a problem in convex geometry. We present an
algorithm that computes sprawl exactly for any generating set, thus quantifying
the failure of various presentations of Z^d to be hyperbolic. This leads to a
conjecture about the extreme values, with a connection to the classic Mahler
conjecture.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures. This is split off from the paper "The geometry
of spheres in free abelian groups.
A theorem of Hrushovski-Solecki-Vershik applied to uniform and coarse embeddings of the Urysohn metric space
A theorem proved by Hrushovski for graphs and extended by Solecki and Vershik
(independently from each other) to metric spaces leads to a stronger version of
ultrahomogeneity of the infinite random graph , the universal Urysohn metric
space \Ur, and other related objects. We show how the result can be used to
average out uniform and coarse embeddings of \Ur (and its various
counterparts) into normed spaces. Sometimes this leads to new embeddings of the
same kind that are metric transforms and besides extend to affine
representations of various isometry groups. As an application of this
technique, we show that \Ur admits neither a uniform nor a coarse embedding
into a uniformly convex Banach space.Comment: 23 pages, LaTeX 2e with Elsevier macros, a significant revision
taking into account anonymous referee's comments, with the proof of the main
result simplified and another long proof moved to the appendi
Non-Euclidean geometry in nature
I describe the manifestation of the non-Euclidean geometry in the behavior of
collective observables of some complex physical systems. Specifically, I
consider the formation of equilibrium shapes of plants and statistics of sparse
random graphs. For these systems I discuss the following interlinked questions:
(i) the optimal embedding of plants leaves in the three-dimensional space, (ii)
the spectral statistics of sparse random matrix ensembles.Comment: 52 pages, 21 figures, last section is rewritten, a reference to
chaotic Hamiltonian systems is adde
Perfect Transfer of Arbitrary States in Quantum Spin Networks
We propose a class of qubit networks that admit perfect state transfer of any
two-dimensional quantum state in a fixed period of time. We further show that
such networks can distribute arbitrary entangled states between two distant
parties, and can, by using such systems in parallel, transmit the higher
dimensional systems states across the network. Unlike many other schemes for
quantum computation and communication, these networks do not require qubit
couplings to be switched on and off. When restricted to -qubit spin networks
of identical qubit couplings, we show that is the maximal perfect
communication distance for hypercube geometries. Moreover, if one allows fixed
but different couplings between the qubits then perfect state transfer can be
achieved over arbitrarily long distances in a linear chain. This paper expands
and extends the work done in PRL 92, 187902.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures with updated reference
Sandpile probabilities on triangular and hexagonal lattices
We consider the Abelian sandpile model on triangular and hexagonal lattices.
We compute several height probabilities on the full plane and on half-planes,
and discuss some properties of the universality of the model.Comment: 26 pages, 12 figures. v2 and v3: minor correction
The history of degenerate (bipartite) extremal graph problems
This paper is a survey on Extremal Graph Theory, primarily focusing on the
case when one of the excluded graphs is bipartite. On one hand we give an
introduction to this field and also describe many important results, methods,
problems, and constructions.Comment: 97 pages, 11 figures, many problems. This is the preliminary version
of our survey presented in Erdos 100. In this version 2 only a citation was
complete
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