Mean-field Potts and random-cluster dynamics from high-entropy initializations

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Blanca, Antonio, Gheissari, Reza, Zhang, Xusheng
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2024
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author Blanca, Antonio
Gheissari, Reza
Zhang, Xusheng
author_facet Blanca, Antonio
Gheissari, Reza
Zhang, Xusheng
contents A common obstruction to efficient sampling from high-dimensional distributions with Markov chains is the multimodality of the target distribution because they may get trapped far from stationarity. Still, one hopes that this is only a barrier to the mixing of Markov chains from worst-case initializations and can be overcome by choosing high-entropy initializations, e.g., a product or weakly correlated distribution. Ideally, from such initializations, the dynamics would escape from the saddle points separating modes quickly and spread its mass between the dominant modes with the correct probabilities. In this paper, we study convergence from high-entropy initializations for the random-cluster and Potts models on the complete graph -- two extensively studied high-dimensional landscapes that pose many complexities like discontinuous phase transitions and asymmetric metastable modes. We study the Chayes--Machta and Swendsen--Wang dynamics for the mean-field random-cluster model and the Glauber dynamics for the Potts model. We sharply characterize the set of product measure initializations from which these Markov chains mix rapidly, even though their mixing times from worst-case initializations are exponentially slow. Our proofs require careful approximations of projections of high-dimensional Markov chains (which are not themselves Markovian) by tractable 1-dimensional random processes, followed by analysis of the latter's escape from saddle points separating stable modes.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2404_13014
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Mean-field Potts and random-cluster dynamics from high-entropy initializations
Blanca, Antonio
Gheissari, Reza
Zhang, Xusheng
Probability
Data Structures and Algorithms
A common obstruction to efficient sampling from high-dimensional distributions with Markov chains is the multimodality of the target distribution because they may get trapped far from stationarity. Still, one hopes that this is only a barrier to the mixing of Markov chains from worst-case initializations and can be overcome by choosing high-entropy initializations, e.g., a product or weakly correlated distribution. Ideally, from such initializations, the dynamics would escape from the saddle points separating modes quickly and spread its mass between the dominant modes with the correct probabilities. In this paper, we study convergence from high-entropy initializations for the random-cluster and Potts models on the complete graph -- two extensively studied high-dimensional landscapes that pose many complexities like discontinuous phase transitions and asymmetric metastable modes. We study the Chayes--Machta and Swendsen--Wang dynamics for the mean-field random-cluster model and the Glauber dynamics for the Potts model. We sharply characterize the set of product measure initializations from which these Markov chains mix rapidly, even though their mixing times from worst-case initializations are exponentially slow. Our proofs require careful approximations of projections of high-dimensional Markov chains (which are not themselves Markovian) by tractable 1-dimensional random processes, followed by analysis of the latter's escape from saddle points separating stable modes.
title Mean-field Potts and random-cluster dynamics from high-entropy initializations
topic Probability
Data Structures and Algorithms
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.13014