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 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.
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…
We address the problem of sampling colorings of a graph $G$ by Markov chain simulation. For most of the article we restrict attention to proper $q$-colorings of a path on $n$ vertices (in statistical physics terms, the one-dimensional $q$-state Potts model at zero temperature), though in later sections we widen our scope to general ``$H$-colorings'' of arbitrary graphs $G$. Existing theoretical analyses of the mixing time of such simulations relate mainly to a dynamics in which a random vertex is selected for updating at each step. However, experimental work is often carried out using systemat…
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…
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 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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
A proper $q$-coloring of a graph is an assignment of one of $q$ colors to each vertex of the graph so that adjacent vertices are colored differently. Sample uniformly among all proper $q$-colorings of a large discrete cube in the integer lattice $\mathbb{Z}^d$. Does the random coloring obtained exhibit any large-scale structure? Does it have fast decay of correlations? We discuss these questions and the way their answers depend on the dimension $d$ and the number of colors $q$. The questions are motivated by statistical physics (anti-ferromagnetic materials, square ice), combinatorics (proper …
Spatial Mixing and Deterministic Approximate Counting of Multi-spin Systems beyond Bounded Degree Graphs
School of Computer Science, Shanghai Jiao Tong University(上海交通大学计算机学院);John Hopcroft Center for Computer Science, Shanghai Jiao Tong University(上海交通大学约翰·霍普克罗夫特计算机科学中心)
It has been shown by van den Berg and Steif that the sub-critical and critical Ising model on $\mathbb{Z}^d$ is a finitary factor of an i.i.d. process (ffiid), whereas the super-critical model is not. In fact, they showed that the latter is a general phenomenon in that a phase transition presents an obstruction for being ffiid. The question remained whether this is the only such obstruction. We make progress on this, showing that certain spatial mixing conditions (notions of weak dependence on boundary conditions, not to be confused with other notions of mixing in ergodic theory) imply ffiid. …
I review recent results and unsolved problems concerning the hard-core lattice gas and the q-coloring model (antiferromagnetic Potts model at zero temperature). For each model, I consider its equilibrium properties (uniqueness/nonuniqueness of the infinite-volume Gibbs measure, complex zeros of the partition function) and the dynamics of local and nonlocal Monte Carlo algorithms (ergodicity, rapid mixing, mixing at complex fugacity). These problems touch on mathematical physics, probability, combinatorics and theoretical computer science.