The Simulator: Understanding Adaptive Sampling in the Moderate-Confidence Regime

We propose a novel technique for analyzing adaptive sampling called the {\em Simulator}. Our approach differs from the existing methods by considering not how much information could be gathered by any fixed sampling strategy, but how difficult it is to distinguish a good sampling strategy from a bad one given the limited amount of data collected up to any given time. This change of perspective allows us to match the strength of both Fano and change-of-measure techniques, without succumbing to the limitations of either method. For concreteness, we apply our techniques to a structured multi-arm bandit problem in the fixed-confidence pure exploration setting, where we show that the constraints on the means imply a substantial gap between the moderate-confidence sample complexity, and the asymptotic sample complexity as $\delta \to 0$ found in the literature. We also prove the first instance-based lower bounds for the top-k problem which incorporate the appropriate log-factors. Moreover, our lower bounds zero-in on the number of times each \emph{individual} arm needs to be pulled, uncovering new phenomena which are drowned out in the aggregate sample complexity. Our new analysis inspires a simple and near-optimal algorithm for the best-arm and top-k identification, the first {\em practical} algorithm of its kind for the latter problem which removes extraneous log factors, and outperforms the state-of-the-art in experiments

Rebels Leading London: the mayoralties of Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson compared

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Generalized HydroDynamics on an Atom Chip

The emergence of a special type of fluid-like behavior at large scales in one-dimensional (1d) quantum integrable systems, theoretically predicted in 2016, is established experimentally, by monitoring the time evolution of the in situ density profile of a single 1d cloud of $^{87}{\rm Rb}$ atoms trapped on an atom chip after a quench of the longitudinal trapping potential. The theory can be viewed as a dynamical extension of the thermodynamics of Yang and Yang, and applies to the whole range of repulsion strength and temperature of the gas. The measurements, performed on weakly interacting atomic clouds that lie at the crossover between the quasicondensate and the ideal Bose gas regimes, are in very good agreement with the 2016 theory. This contrasts with the previously existing 'conventional' hydrodynamic approach---that relies on the assumption of local thermal equilibrium---, which is unable to reproduce the experimental data.Comment: v1: 6+11 pages, 4+4 figures. v2: published version, 6+11 pages, 4+6 figure