skip to main content


Title: Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs):Approximation, Randomization, and Combinatorial Optimization. Algorithms and Techniques (APPROX/RANDOM 2023)
We provide a perfect sampling algorithm for the hard-sphere model on subsets of R^d with expected running time linear in the volume under the assumption of strong spatial mixing. A large number of perfect and approximate sampling algorithms have been devised to sample from the hard-sphere model, and our perfect sampling algorithm is efficient for a range of parameters for which only efficient approximate samplers were previously known and is faster than these known approximate approaches. Our methods also extend to the more general setting of Gibbs point processes interacting via finite-range, repulsive potentials.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
2309708
NSF-PAR ID:
10501357
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ;
Editor(s):
Megow, Nicole; Smith, Adam
Publisher / Repository:
Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik
Date Published:
Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
perfect sampling hard-sphere model Gibbs point processes Theory of computation → Randomness, geometry and discrete structures
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. We give a algorithm for exact sampling from the Bingham distribution p(x)∝exp(x⊤Ax) on the sphere Sd−1 with expected runtime of poly(d,λmax(A)−λmin(A)). The algorithm is based on rejection sampling, where the proposal distribution is a polynomial approximation of the pdf, and can be sampled from by explicitly evaluating integrals of polynomials over the sphere. Our algorithm gives exact samples, assuming exact computation of an inverse function of a polynomial. This is in contrast with Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithms, which are not known to enjoy rapid mixing on this problem, and only give approximate samples. As a direct application, we use this to sample from the posterior distribution of a rank-1 matrix inference problem in polynomial time. 
    more » « less
  2. Chakrabarti, Amit ; Swamy, Chaitanya (Ed.)
    We give an efficient perfect sampling algorithm for weighted, connected induced subgraphs (or graphlets) of rooted, bounded degree graphs. Our algorithm utilizes a vertex-percolation process with a carefully chosen rejection filter and works under a percolation subcriticality condition. We show that this condition is optimal in the sense that the task of (approximately) sampling weighted rooted graphlets becomes impossible in finite expected time for infinite graphs and intractable for finite graphs when the condition does not hold. We apply our sampling algorithm as a subroutine to give near linear-time perfect sampling algorithms for polymer models and weighted non-rooted graphlets in finite graphs, two widely studied yet very different problems. This new perfect sampling algorithm for polymer models gives improved sampling algorithms for spin systems at low temperatures on expander graphs and unbalanced bipartite graphs, among other applications. 
    more » « less
  3. We give an efficient perfect sampling algorithm for weighted, connected induced subgraphs (orgraphlets) of rooted, bounded degree graphs. Our algorithm utilizes a vertex-percolation process with a carefully chosen rejection filter and works under a percolation subcriticality condition. We show that this condition is optimal in the sense that the task of (approximately) sampling weighted rooted graphlets becomes impossible in finite expected time for infinite graphs and intractable for finite graphs when the condition does not hold. We apply our sampling algorithm as a subroutine to give near linear-time perfect sampling algorithms for polymer models and weighted non-rooted graphlets in finite graphs, two widely studied yet very different problems. This new perfect sampling algorithm for polymer models gives improved sampling algorithms for spin systems at low temperatures on expander graphs and unbalanced bipartite graphs, among other applications.

     
    more » « less
  4. Czumaj, Artur (Ed.)
    We study the approximation complexity of the partition function of the eight-vertex model on general 4-regular graphs. For the first time, we relate the approximability of the eight-vertex model to the complexity of approximately counting perfect matchings, a central open problem in this field. Our results extend those in [8]. In a region of the parameter space where no previous approximation complexity was known, we show that approximating the partition function is at least as hard as approximately counting perfect matchings via approximation-preserving reductions. In another region of the parameter space which is larger than the region that is previously known to admit Fully Polynomial Randomized Approximation Scheme (FPRAS), we show that computing the partition function can be reduced to counting perfect matchings (which is valid for both exact and approximate counting). Moreover, we give a complete characterization of nonnegatively weighted (not necessarily planar) 4-ary matchgates, which has been open for several years. The key ingredient of our proof is a geometric lemma. We also identify a region of the parameter space where approximating the partition function on planar 4-regular graphs is feasible but on general 4-regular graphs is equivalent to approximately counting perfect matchings. To our best knowledge, these are the first problems that exhibit this dichotomic behavior between the planar and the nonplanar settings in approximate counting. 
    more » « less
  5. We study the identity testing problem in the context of spin systems or undirected graphical models, where it takes the following form: given the parameter specification of the model M and a sampling oracle for the distribution \mu_{M^*} of an unknown model M^*, can we efficiently determine if the two models M and M^* are the same? We consider identity testing for both soft-constraint and hard-constraint systems. In particular, we prove hardness results in two prototypical cases, the Ising model and proper colorings, and explore whether identity testing is any easier than structure learning. For the ferromagnetic (attractive) Ising model, Daskalasis et al. (2018) presented a polynomial time algorithm for identity testing. We prove hardness results in the antiferromagnetic (repulsive) setting in the same regime of parameters where structure learning is known to require a super-polynomial number of samples. In particular, for n-vertex graphs of maximum degree d, we prove that if |\beta| d = \omega(\log n) (where \beta is the inverse temperature parameter), then there is no identity testing algorithm for the antiferromagnetic Ising model that runs in polynomial time unless RP = NP. We also establish computational lower bounds for a broader set of parameters under the (randomized) exponential time hypothesis. In our proofs, we use random graphs as gadgets; this is inspired by similar constructions in seminal works on the hardness of approximate counting. In the hard-constraint setting, we present hardness results for identity testing for proper colorings. Our results are based on the presumed hardness of #BIS, the problem of (approximately) counting independent sets in bipartite graphs. In particular, we prove that identity testing for colorings is hard in the same range of parameters where structure learning is known to be hard, which in turn matches the parameter regime for NP-hardness of the corresponding decision problem. 
    more » « less