We prove that the mixing time of the Glauber dynamics for random k-colorings of the complete tree with branching factor b undergoes a phase transition at $k=b(1+o_b(1))/\ln{b}$. Our main result shows nearly sharp bounds on the mixing time of the dynamics on the complete tree with n vertices for $k=Cb/\ln{b}$ colors with constant C. For $C\geq1$ we prove the mixing time is $O(n^{1+o_b(1)}\ln{n})$. On the other side, for $C<1$ the mixing time experiences a slowing down; in particular, we prove it is $O(n^{1/C+o_b(1)}\ln{n})$ and $Ω(n^{1/C-o_b(1)})$. The critical point C=1 is interesting since it coincides (at least up to first order) with the so-called reconstruction threshold which was recently established by Sly. The reconstruction threshold has been of considerable interest recently since it appears to have close connections to the efficiency of certain local algorithms, and this work was inspired by our attempt to understand these connections in this particular setting.
A well-known conjecture in computer science and statistical physics is that Glauber dynamics on the set of $k$-colorings of a graph $G$ on $n$ vertices with maximum degree $Δ$ is rapidly mixing for $k \geq Δ+2$. In FOCS 1999, Vigoda showed rapid mixing of flip dynamics with certain flip parameters on the set of proper $k$-colorings for $k > \frac{11}{6}Δ$, implying rapid mixing for Glauber dynamics. In this paper, we obtain the first improvement beyond the $\frac{11}{6}Δ$ barrier for general graphs by showing rapid mixing for $k > (\frac{11}{6} - η)Δ$ for some positive constant $η$. The key to…
The mixing time of the Glauber dynamics for spin systems on trees is closely related to reconstruction problem. Martinelli, Sinclair and Weitz established this correspondence for a class of spin systems with soft constraints bounding the log-Sobolev constant by a comparison with the block dynamics. However, when there are hard constraints, the block dynamics may be reducible. We introduce a variant of the block dynamics extending these results to a wide class of spin systems with hard constraints. This applies for essentially any spin system that has non-reconstruction provided that on average…
We show that for any attractive Glauber-Exclusion process on the one-dimensional lattice of size $N$ with periodic boundary condition, if the corresponding hydrodynamic limit equation has a reaction term with a strictly convex potential, then the total-variation mixing time is of order $O(\log N)$. In particular, the result covers the full high-temperature regime in the original model introduced by De Masi, Ferrari and Lebowitz (1985).
We provide a general bound on the Wasserstein distance between two arbitrary distributions of sequences of Bernoulli random variables. The bound is in terms of a mixing quantity for the Glauber dynamics of one of the sequences, and a simple expectation of the other. The result is applied to estimate, with explicit error, expectations of functions of random vectors for some Ising models and exponential random graphs in "high temperature" regimes.
In this work we prove sufficient conditions for the Glauber dynamics corresponding to a sequence of (non-product) measures on finite product spaces to be rapidly mixing, i.e. that the mixing time with respect to the total variation distance satisfies $t_{mix} = O(N \log N)$, where $N$ is the system size. The proofs do not rely on coupling arguments, but instead use functional inequalities. As a byproduct, we obtain exponential decay of the relative entropy along the Glauber semigroup. These conditions can be checked in various examples, which include the exponential random graph models with su…
Glauber dynamics is a powerful tool to generate randomized, approximate solutions to combinatorially difficult problems. Applications include Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulation and distributed scheduling for wireless networks. In this paper, we derive bounds on the mixing time of a generalization of Glauber dynamics where multiple vertices are allowed to update their states in parallel and the fugacity of each vertex can be different. The results can be used to obtain various conditions on the system parameters such as fugacities, vertex degrees and update probabilities, under which th…
We study Markov chains for randomly sampling $k$-colorings of a graph with maximum degree $Δ$. Our main result is a polynomial upper bound on the mixing time of the single-site update chain known as the Glauber dynamics for planar graphs when $k=Ω(Δ/\logΔ)$. Our results can be partially extended to the more general case where the maximum eigenvalue of the adjacency matrix of the graph is at most $Δ^{1-\eps}$, for fixed $\eps > 0$. The main challenge when $k \le Δ+ 1$ is the possibility of "frozen" vertices, that is, vertices for which only one color is possible, conditioned on the colors of it…
In this paper, we present a novel extension to the classical path coupling method to statistical mechanical models which we refer to as aggregate path coupling. In conjunction with large deviations estimates, we use this aggregate path coupling method to prove rapid mixing of Glauber dynamics for a large class of statistical mechanical models, including models that exhibit discontinuous phase transitions which have traditionally been more difficult to analyze rigorously. The parameter region for rapid mixing for the generalized Curie-Weiss-Potts model is derived as a new application of the agg…
We investigate the problem of strong spatial mixing of $q$-colorings on Bethe lattices. By analyzing the sum-product algorithm we establish the strong spatial mixing of $q$-colorings on $(b+1)$-regular Bethe lattices, for $q \geq 1+\lceil 1.764b \rceil$. We also establish the strong spatial mixing of $q$-colorings on binary trees, for $q=4$.
A well-known conjecture in computer science and statistical physics is that Glauber dynamics on the set of $k$-colorings of a graph $G$ on $n$ vertices with maximum degree $Δ$ is rapidly mixing for $k\geΔ+2$. In FOCS 1999, Vigoda showed that the flip dynamics (and therefore also Glauber dynamics) is rapidly mixing for any $k>\frac{11}{6}Δ$. It turns out that there is a natural barrier at $\frac{11}{6}$, below which there is no one-step coupling that is contractive with respect to the Hamming metric, even for the flip dynamics. We use linear programming and duality arguments to fully characteri…
We study the single-site Glauber dynamics for the fugacity $λ$, Hard-core model on the random graph $G(n, d/n)$. We show that for the typical instances of the random graph $G(n,d/n)$ and for fugacity $λ< \frac{d^d}{(d-1)^{d+1}}$, the mixing time of Glauber dynamics is $n^{1 + O(1/\log \log n)}$. Our result improves on the recent elegant algorithm in [Bezakova, Galanis, Goldberg Stefankovic; ICALP'22]. The algorithm there is a MCMC based sampling algorithm, but it is not the Glauber dynamics. Our algorithm here is simpler, as we use the classic Glauber dynamics. Furthermore, the bounds on mixin…
We give the first comprehensive analysis of the effect of boundary conditions on the mixing time of the Glauber dynamics in the so-called Bethe approximation. Specifically, we show that spectral gap and the log-Sobolev constant of the Glauber dynamics for the Ising model on an n-vertex regular tree with plus-boundary are bounded below by a constant independent of n at all temperatures and all external fields. This implies that the mixing time is O(log n) (in contrast to the free boundary case, where it is not bounded by any fixed polynomial at low temperatures). In addition, our methods yield …
A mixing Markov chain is proved to be realized as a random walk in a directed graph subject to a synchronizing road coloring. The result ensures existence of appropriate random mappings in Propp--Wilson's coupling from the past. The proof is based on the road coloring theorem. A necessary and sufficient condition for approximate preservation of entropies is also given.
We study the Glauber dynamics for the Ising model on the complete graph, also known as the Curie-Weiss Model. For beta < 1, we prove that the dynamics exhibits a cut-off: the distance to stationarity drops from near 1 to near 0 in a window of order n centered at [2(1-beta)]^{-1} n log n. For beta = 1, we prove that the mixing time is of order n^{3/2}. For beta > 1, we study metastability. In particular, we show that the Glauber dynamics restricted to states of non-negative magnetization has mixing time O(n log n).
We prove an optimal $Ω(n^{-1})$ lower bound on the spectral gap of Glauber dynamics for anti-ferromagnetic two-spin systems with $n$ vertices in the tree uniqueness regime. This spectral gap holds for all, including unbounded, maximum degree $Δ$. Consequently, we have the following mixing time bounds for the models satisfying the uniqueness condition with a slack $δ\in(0,1)$: $\bullet$ $C(δ) n^2\log n$ mixing time for the hardcore model with fugacity $λ\le (1-δ)λ_c(Δ)= (1-δ)\frac{(Δ- 1)^{Δ- 1}}{(Δ- 2)^Δ}$; $\bullet$ $C(δ) n^2$ mixing time for the Ising model with edge activity $β\in\left[\frac…
We prove an optimal mixing time bound on the single-site update Markov chain known as the Glauber dynamics or Gibbs sampling in a variety of settings. Our work presents an improved version of the spectral independence approach of Anari et al. (2020) and shows $O(n\log{n})$ mixing time on any $n$-vertex graph of bounded degree when the maximum eigenvalue of an associated influence matrix is bounded. As an application of our results, for the hard-core model on independent sets weighted by a fugacity $λ$, we establish $O(n\log{n})$ mixing time for the Glauber dynamics on any $n$-vertex graph of c…
Gibbs sampling also known as Glauber dynamics is a popular technique for sampling high dimensional distributions defined on graphs. Of special interest is the behavior of Gibbs sampling on the Erdős-Rényi random graph G(n,d/n). While the average degree in G(n,d/n) is d(1-o(1)), it contains many nodes of degree of order $\log n / \log \log n$. The existence of nodes of almost logarithmic degrees implies that for many natural distributions defined on G(n,p) such as uniform coloring or the Ising model, the mixing time of Gibbs sampling is at least $n^{1 + Ω(1 / \log \log n)}$. High degree nodes p…
The six-vertex model in statistical physics is a weighted generalization of the ice model on $\mathbb{Z}^2$ (i.e., Eulerian orientations) and the zero-temperature three-state Potts model (i.e., proper three-colorings). The phase diagram of the model depicts its physical properties and suggests where local Markov chains will be efficient. In this paper, we analyze the mixing time of Glauber dynamics for the six-vertex model in the ordered phases. Specifically, we show that for all Boltzmann weights in the ferroelectric phase, there exist boundary conditions such that local Markov chains require…
The spectral independence approach of Anari et al. (2020) utilized recent results on high-dimensional expanders of Alev and Lau (2020) and established rapid mixing of the Glauber dynamics for the hard-core model defined on weighted independent sets. We develop the spectral independence approach for colorings, and obtain new algorithmic results for the corresponding counting/sampling problems. Let $α^*\approx 1.763$ denote the solution to $\exp(1/x)=x$ and let $α>α^*$. We prove that, for any triangle-free graph $G=(V,E)$ with maximum degree $Δ$, for all $q\geqαΔ+1$, the mixing time of the Glaub…
Here we study the problem of sampling random proper colorings of a bounded degree graph. Let $k$ be the number of colors and let $d$ be the maximum degree. In 1999, Vigoda showed that the Glauber dynamics is rapidly mixing for any $k > \frac{11}{6} d$. It turns out that there is a natural barrier at $\frac{11}{6}$, below which there is no one-step coupling that is contractive, even for the flip dynamics. We use linear programming and duality arguments to guide our construction of a better coupling. We fully characterize the obstructions to going beyond $\frac{11}{6}$. These examples turn out t…
We consider Glauber dynamics for the Ising model on the complete graph on $n$ vertices, known as the Curie-Weiss model. It is well-known that the mixing-time in the high temperature regime ($β< 1$) has order $n\log n$, whereas the mixing-time in the case $β> 1$ is exponential in $n$. Recently, Levin, Luczak and Peres proved that for any fixed $β< 1$ there is cutoff at time $[2(1-β)]^{-1} n\log n$ with a window of order $n$, whereas the mixing-time at the critical temperature $β=1$ is $Θ(n^{3/2})$. It is natural to ask how the mixing-time transitions from $Θ(n\log n)$ to $Θ(n^{3/2})$ and finall…
We study continuous time Glauber dynamics for random configurations with local constraints (e.g. proper coloring, Ising and Potts models) on finite graphs with $n$ vertices and of bounded degree. We show that the relaxation time (defined as the reciprocal of the spectral gap $|λ_1-λ_2|$) for the dynamics on trees and on planar hyperbolic graphs, is polynomial in $n$. For these hyperbolic graphs, this yields a general polynomial sampling algorithm for random configurations. We then show that if the relaxation time $τ_2$ satisfies $τ_2=O(1)$, then the correlation coefficient, and the mutual info…
In the study of Markov chain mixing times, analysis has centered on the performance from a worst-case starting state. Here, in the context of Glauber dynamics for the one-dimensional Ising model, we show how new ideas from information percolation can be used to establish mixing times from other starting states. At high temperatures we show that the alternating initial condition is asymptotically the fastest one, and, surprisingly, its mixing time is faster than at infinite temperature, accelerating as the inverse-temperature $β$ ranges from 0 to $β_0=\frac12\mathrm{arctanh}(\frac13)$. Moreover…
The property of spatial mixing and strong spatial mixing in spin systems has been of interest because of its implications on uniqueness of Gibbs measures on infinite graphs and efficient approximation of counting problems that are otherwise known to be #P hard. In the context of coloring, strong spatial mixing has been established for regular trees when $q \geq α^{*} Δ+ 1$ where $q$ the number of colors, $Δ$ is the degree and $α^* = 1.763..$ is the unique solution to $xe^{-1/x} = 1$. It has also been established for bounded degree lattice graphs whenever $q \geq α^* Δ- β$ for some constant $β$…
We study the stochastic Ising model on finite graphs with n vertices and bounded degree and analyze the effect of boundary conditions on the mixing time. We show that for all low enough temperatures, the spectral gap of the dynamics with (+)-boundary condition on a class of nonamenable graphs, is strictly positive uniformly in n. This implies that the mixing time grows at most linearly in n. The class of graphs we consider includes hyperbolic graphs with sufficiently high degree, where the best upper bound on the mixing time of the free boundary dynamics is polynomial in n, with exponent growi…
For general antiferromagnetic 2-spin systems, including the hardcore model and the antiferromagnetic Ising model, there is an $\mathsf{FPTAS}$ for the partition function on graphs of maximum degree $Δ$ when the infinite regular tree lies in the uniqueness region by Li et al. (2013). Moreover, in the tree non-uniqueness region, Sly (2010) showed that there is no $\mathsf{FPRAS}$ to estimate the partition function unless $\mathsf{NP}=\mathsf{RP}$. The algorithmic results follow from the correlation decay approach due to Weitz (2006) or the polynomial interpolation approach developed by Barvinok …
The Glauber dynamics on the colourings of a graph is a random process which consists in recolouring at each step a random vertex of a graph with a new colour chosen uniformly at random among the colours not already present in its neighbourhood. It is known that when the total number of colours available is at least $Δ+2$, where $Δ$ is the maximum degree of the graph, this process converges to a uniform distribution on the set of all the colourings. Moreover, a well known conjecture is that the time it takes for the convergence to happen, called the mixing time, is polynomial in the size of the…
We study Glauber dynamics for the mean-field (Curie-Weiss) Potts model with $q\geq 3$ states and show that it undergoes a critical slowdown at an inverse-temperature $β_s(q)$ strictly lower than the critical $β_c(q)$ for uniqueness of the thermodynamic limit. The dynamical critical $β_s(q)$ is the spinodal point marking the onset of metastability. We prove that when $β<β_s(q)$ the mixing time is asymptotically $C(β, q) n \log n$ and the dynamics exhibits the cutoff phenomena, a sharp transition in mixing, with a window of order $n$. At $β=β_s(q)$ the dynamics no longer exhibits cutoff and its …
Consider random $d$-regular graphs, i.e., random graphs such that there are exactly $d$ edges from each vertex for some $d\ge 3$. We study both the configuration model version of this graph, which has occasional multi-edges and self-loops, as well as the simple version of it, which is a $d$-regular graph chosen uniformly at random from the collection of all $d$-regular graphs. In this paper, we discuss mixing times of Glauber dynamics for the Ising model with an external magnetic field on a random $d$-regular graph, both in the quenched as well as the annealed settings. Let $β$ be the inverse …
Peres and Winkler proved a "censoring" inequality for Glauber dynamics on monotone spins systems such as the Ising model. Specifically, if, starting from a constant-spin configuration, the spins are updated at some sequence of sites, then inserting another site into this sequence brings the resulting configuration closer in total variation to the stationary distribution. We show by means of simple counterexamples that the analogous statements fail for Glauber dynamics on proper colorings of a graph, and for lazy transpositions on permutations, answering two questions of Peres. It is not known …
Consider Glauber dynamics for the Ising model on a graph of $n$ vertices. Hayes and Sinclair showed that the mixing time for this dynamics is at least $n\log n/f(Δ)$, where $Δ$ is the maximum degree and $f(Δ) = Θ(Δ\log^2 Δ)$. Their result applies to more general spin systems, and in that generality, they showed that some dependence on $Δ$ is necessary. In this paper, we focus on the ferromagnetic Ising model and prove that the mixing time of Glauber dynamics on any $n$-vertex graph is at least $(1/4+o(1))n \log n$.
We give a systematic development of the application of matrix norms to rapid mixing in spin systems. We show that rapid mixing of both random update Glauber dynamics and systematic scan Glauber dynamics occurs if any matrix norm of the associated dependency matrix is less than 1. We give improved analysis for the case in which the diagonal of the dependency matrix is $\mathbf{0}$ (as in heat bath dynamics). We apply the matrix norm methods to random update and systematic scan Glauber dynamics for coloring various classes of graphs. We give a general method for estimating a norm of a symmetric …
The Gaussian Free Field (GFF) is a canonical random surface in probability theory generalizing Brownian motion to higher dimensions. In two dimensions, it is critical in several senses, and is expected to be the universal scaling limit of a host of random surface models in statistical physics. It also arises naturally as the stationary solution to the stochastic heat equation with additive noise. Focusing on the dynamical aspects of the corresponding universality class, we study the mixing time, i.e., the rate of convergence to stationarity, for the canonical prelimiting object, namely the dis…
We prove an optimal $O(n \log n)$ mixing time of the Glauber dynamics for the Ising models with edge activity $β\in \left(\frac{Δ-2}Δ, \fracΔ{Δ-2}\right)$. This mixing time bound holds even if the maximum degree $Δ$ is unbounded. We refine the boosting technique developed in [CFYZ21], and prove a new boosting theorem by utilizing the entropic independence defined in [AJK+21]. The theorem relates the modified log-Sobolev (MLS) constant of the Glauber dynamics for a near-critical Ising model to that for an Ising model in a sub-critical regime.
In this paper, the Glauber dynamics for the Ising model on the complete multipartite graph $K_{np_1,\dots,np_m}$ is investigated where $0<p_i<1$ is the proportion of the vertices in the $i$th component. We show that the dynamics exhibits the cutoff phenomena at $t_n = \frac{1}{2(1-β/β_{cr})} n\ln n $ with window size $O(n)$ in the high temperature regime $β< β_{cr}$ where $β_{cr}$ is a constant only depending on $p_1,\dots,p_m$. Exponentially slow mixing is shown in the low temperature regime $β>β_{cr}$.
We prove that Ising models on the hypercube with general quadratic interactions satisfy a Poincaré inequality with respect to the natural Dirichlet form corresponding to Glauber dynamics, as soon as the operator norm of the interaction matrix is smaller than $1$. The inequality implies a control on the mixing time of the Glauber dynamics. Our techniques rely on a localization procedure which establishes a structural result, stating that Ising measures may be decomposed into a mixture of measures with quadratic potentials of rank one, and provides a framework for proving concentration bounds fo…
We present an improved coupling technique for analyzing the mixing time of Markov chains. Using our technique, we simplify and extend previous results for sampling colorings and independent sets. Our approach uses properties of the stationary distribution to avoid worst-case configurations which arise in the traditional approach. As an application, we show that for $k/Δ>1.764$, the Glauber dynamics on $k$-colorings of a graph on $n$ vertices with maximum degree $Δ$ converges in $O(n\log n)$ steps, assuming $Δ=Ω(\log n)$ and that the graph is triangle-free. Previously, girth $\ge 5$ was needed.…
We consider Glauber dynamics (starting from an extremal configuration) in a monotone spin system, and show that interjecting extra updates cannot increase the expected Hamming distance or the total variation distance to the stationary distribution. We deduce that for monotone Markov random fields, when block dynamics contracts a Hamming metric, single-site dynamics mixes in O(n log n) steps on an n-vertex graph. In particular, our result completes work of Kenyon, Mossel and Peres concerning Glauber dynamics for the Ising model on trees. Our approach also shows that on bipartite graphs, alterna…
