For general spin systems, we prove that a contractive coupling for any local Markov chain implies optimal bounds on the mixing time and the modified log-Sobolev constant for a large class of Markov chains including the Glauber dynamics, arbitrary heat-bath block dynamics, and the Swendsen-Wang dynamics. This reveals a novel connection between probabilistic techniques for bounding the convergence to stationarity and analytic tools for analyzing the decay of relative entropy. As a corollary of our general results, we obtain $O(n\log{n})$ mixing time and $Ω(1/n)$ modified log-Sobolev constant of the Glauber dynamics for sampling random $q$-colorings of an $n$-vertex graph with constant maximum degree $Δ$ when $q > (11/6 - ε_0)Δ$ for some fixed $ε_0>0$. We also obtain $O(\log{n})$ mixing time and $Ω(1)$ modified log-Sobolev constant of the Swendsen-Wang dynamics for the ferromagnetic Ising model on an $n$-vertex graph of constant maximum degree when the parameters of the system lie in the tree uniqueness region. At the heart of our results are new techniques for establishing spectral independence of the spin system and block factorization of the relative entropy. On one hand we prove that a contractive coupling of a local Markov chain implies spectral independence of the Gibbs distribution. On the other hand we show that spectral independence implies factorization of entropy for arbitrary blocks, establishing optimal bounds on the modified log-Sobolev constant of the corresponding block dynamics.
In probability theory, the independence is a very fundamental concept, but with a little mystery. People can always easily manipulate it logistically but not geometrically, especially when it comes to the independence relationships among more that two variables, which may also involve conditional independence. Here I am particularly interested in visualizing Markov chains which have the well known memoryless property. I am not talking about drawing the transition graph, instead, I will draw all events of the Markov process in a single plot. Here, to simplify the question, this work will only c…
Spectral theory for Markov chains with transition matrix admitting a stochastic bidiagonal factorization
Universidade de Coimbra（科英布拉大学）；Universidade de Aveiro（阿威罗大学）；Universidad Complutense de Madrid（马德里康普顿斯大学）；Instituto de Ciencias Matematicas (ICMAT)（数学科学研究所）
In this paper, we provide a review on the GTH algorithm, which is a numerically stable algorithm for computing stationary probabilities of a Markov chain. Mathematically the GTH algorithm is an rearrangement of Gaussian elimination, and therefore they are mathematically equivalent. All components in the GTH algorithm can be interpreted probabilistically based on the censoring concept and each elimination in the GTH algorithm leads to a censored Markov chain. The $RG$-factorization is a counterpart to the LU-decomposition for Gaussian elimination. The censored Markov chain can also be treated a…
We develop Markov categories as a framework for synthetic probability and statistics, following work of Golubtsov as well as Cho and Jacobs. This means that we treat the following concepts in purely abstract categorical terms: conditioning and disintegration; various versions of conditional independence and its standard properties; conditional products; almost surely; sufficient statistics; versions of theorems on sufficient statistics due to Fisher--Neyman, Basu, and Bahadur. Besides the conceptual clarity offered by our categorical setup, its main advantage is that it provides a uniform trea…
Two recent and seemingly-unrelated techniques for proving mixing bounds for Markov chains are: (i) the framework of Spectral Independence, introduced by Anari, Liu and Oveis Gharan, and its numerous extensions, which have given rise to several breakthroughs in the analysis of mixing times of discrete Markov chains and (ii) the Stochastic Localization technique which has proven useful in establishing mixing and expansion bounds for both log-concave measures and for measures on the discrete hypercube. In this paper, we introduce a framework which connects ideas from both techniques. Our framewor…
We show that the existence of a "good"' coupling w.r.t. Hamming distance for any local Markov chain on a discrete product space implies rapid mixing of the Glauber dynamics in a blackbox fashion. More specifically, we only require the expected distance between successive iterates under the coupling to be summable, as opposed to being one-step contractive in the worst case. Combined with recent local-to-global arguments \cite{CLV21}, we establish asymptotically optimal lower bounds on the standard and modified log-Sobolev constants for the Glauber dynamics for sampling from spin systems on boun…
A spectral Favard theorem for bounded banded lower Hessenberg matrices that admit a positive bidiagonal factorization is found. The large knowledge on the spectral and factorization properties of oscillatory matrices leads to this spectral Favard theorem in terms of sequences of multiple orthogonal polynomials of types I and II with respect to a set of positive Lebesgue-Stieltjes~measures. Also a multiple Gauss quadrature is proven and corresponding degrees of precision are found. This spectral Favard theorem is applied to Markov chains with $(p+2)$-diagonal transition matrices, i.e. beyond bi…
We study the limit behaviour of upper and lower bounds on expected time averages in imprecise Markov chains; a generalised type of Markov chain where the local dynamics, traditionally characterised by transition probabilities, are now represented by sets of `plausible' transition probabilities. Our first main result is a necessary and sufficient condition under which these upper and lower bounds, called upper and lower expected time averages, will converge as time progresses towards infinity to limit values that do not depend on the process' initial state. Our condition is considerably weaker …
We study the problem of characterizing the expected hitting times for a robust generalization of continuous-time Markov chains. This generalization is based on the theory of imprecise probabilities, and the models with which we work essentially constitute sets of stochastic processes. Their inferences are tight lower- and upper bounds with respect to variation within these sets. We consider three distinct types of these models, corresponding to different levels of generality and structural independence assumptions on the constituent processes. Our main results are twofold; first, we demonstrat…
