Regularity lemmas in a Banach space setting

Szemer\'edi's regularity lemma is a fundamental tool in extremal graph theory, theoretical computer science and combinatorial number theory. Lov\'asz and Szegedy [L. Lov\'asz and B. Szegedy: Szemer\'edi's Lemma for the analyst, Geometric and Functional Analysis 17 (2007), 252-270] gave a Hilbert space interpretation of the lemma and an interpretation in terms of compact- ness of the space of graph limits. In this paper we prove several compactness results in a Banach space setting, generalising results of Lov\'asz and Szegedy as well as a result of Borgs, Chayes, Cohn and Zhao [C. Borgs, J.T. Chayes, H. Cohn and Y. Zhao: An Lp theory of sparse graph convergence I: limits, sparse random graph models, and power law distributions, arXiv preprint arXiv:1401.2906 (2014)].Comment: 15 pages. The topological part has been substantially improved based on referees comments. To appear in European Journal of Combinatoric

Deterministic polynomial-time approximation algorithms for partition functions and graph polynomials

In this paper we show a new way of constructing deterministic polynomial-time approximation algorithms for computing complex-valued evaluations of a large class of graph polynomials on bounded degree graphs. In particular, our approach works for the Tutte polynomial and independence polynomial, as well as partition functions of complex-valued spin and edge-coloring models. More specifically, we define a large class of graph polynomials $\mathcal C$ and show that if $p\in \cal C$ and there is a disk $D$ centered at zero in the complex plane such that $p(G)$ does not vanish on $D$ for all bounded degree graphs $G$, then for each $z$ in the interior of $D$ there exists a deterministic polynomial-time approximation algorithm for evaluating $p(G)$ at $z$. This gives an explicit connection between absence of zeros of graph polynomials and the existence of efficient approximation algorithms, allowing us to show new relationships between well-known conjectures. Our work builds on a recent line of work initiated by. Barvinok, which provides a new algorithmic approach besides the existing Markov chain Monte Carlo method and the correlation decay method for these types of problems.Comment: 27 pages; some changes have been made based on referee comments. In particular a tiny error in Proposition 4.4 has been fixed. The introduction and concluding remarks have also been rewritten to incorporate the most recent developments. Accepted for publication in SIAM Journal on Computatio

Tensor invariants for certain subgroups of the orthogonal group

Let V be an n-dimensional vector space and let On be the orthogonal group. Motivated by a question of B. Szegedy (B. Szegedy, Edge coloring models and reflection positivity, Journal of the American Mathematical Society Volume 20, Number 4, 2007), about the rank of edge connection matrices of partition functions of vertex models, we give a combinatorial parameterization of tensors in V \otimes k invariant under certain subgroups of the orthogonal group. This allows us to give an answer to this question for vertex models with values in an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero.Comment: 14 pages, figure. We fixed a few typo's. To appear in Journal of Algebraic Combinatoric

Weighted counting of solutions to sparse systems of equations

Given complex numbers $w_1, \ldots, w_n$, we define the weight $w(X)$ of a set $X$ of 0-1 vectors as the sum of $w_1^{x_1} \cdots w_n^{x_n}$ over all vectors $(x_1, \ldots, x_n)$ in $X$. We present an algorithm, which for a set $X$ defined by a system of homogeneous linear equations with at most $r$ variables per equation and at most $c$ equations per variable, computes $w(X)$ within relative error $\epsilon >0$ in $(rc)^{O(\ln n-\ln \epsilon)}$ time provided $|w_j| \leq \beta (r \sqrt{c})^{-1}$ for an absolute constant $\beta >0$ and all $j=1, \ldots, n$. A similar algorithm is constructed for computing the weight of a linear code over ${\Bbb F}_p$. Applications include counting weighted perfect matchings in hypergraphs, counting weighted graph homomorphisms, computing weight enumerators of linear codes with sparse code generating matrices, and computing the partition functions of the ferromagnetic Potts model at low temperatures and of the hard-core model at high fugacity on biregular bipartite graphs.Comment: The exposition is improved, a couple of inaccuracies correcte

On the Caratheodory rank of polymatroid bases

In this paper we prove that the Carath\'eodory rank of the set of bases of a (poly)matroid is upper bounded by the cardinality of the ground set.Comment: 7 page

Polyhedra with the Integer Caratheodory Property

A polyhedron P has the Integer Caratheodory Property if the following holds. For any positive integer k and any integer vector w in kP, there exist affinely independent integer vectors x_1,...,x_t in P and positive integers n_1,...,n_t such that n_1+...+n_t=k and w=n_1x_1+...+n_tx_t. In this paper we prove that if P is a (poly)matroid base polytope or if P is defined by a TU matrix, then P and projections of P satisfy the integer Caratheodory property.Comment: 12 page

The rank of edge connection matrices and the dimension of algebras of invariant tensors

We characterize the rank of edge connection matrices of partition functions of real vertex models, as the dimension of the homogeneous components of the algebra of $G$-invariant tensors. Here $G$ is the sub- group of the real orthogonal group that stabilizes the vertex model. This answers a question of Bal\'azs Szegedy from 2007.Comment: Two figures added and some typos fixe