On Sampling from Ising Models with Spectral Constraints

Fuente: arXiv
Salvato in:
Dettagli Bibliografici
Autori principali: Galanis, Andreas, Kalavasis, Alkis, Kandiros, Anthimos Vardis
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2024
Soggetti:
Accesso online:
Tags: Aggiungi Tag
Nessun Tag, puoi essere il primo ad aggiungerne!!
_version_ 1866911951058108416
author Galanis, Andreas
Kalavasis, Alkis
Kandiros, Anthimos Vardis
author_facet Galanis, Andreas
Kalavasis, Alkis
Kandiros, Anthimos Vardis
contents We consider the problem of sampling from the Ising model when the underlying interaction matrix has eigenvalues lying within an interval of length $γ$. Recent work in this setting has shown various algorithmic results that apply roughly when $γ< 1$, notably with nearly-linear running times based on the classical Glauber dynamics. However, the optimality of the range of $γ$ was not clear since previous inapproximability results developed for the antiferromagnetic case (where the matrix has entries $\leq 0$) apply only for $γ>2$. To this end, Kunisky (SODA'24) recently provided evidence that the problem becomes hard already when $γ>1$ based on the low-degree hardness for an inference problem on random matrices. Based on this, he conjectured that sampling from the Ising model in the same range of $γ$ is NP-hard. Here we confirm this conjecture, complementing in particular the known algorithmic results by showing NP-hardness results for approximately counting and sampling when $γ>1$, with strong inapproximability guarantees; we also obtain a more refined hardness result for matrices where only a constant number of entries per row are allowed to be non-zero. The main observation in our reductions is that, for $γ>1$, Glauber dynamics mixes slowly when the interactions are all positive (ferromagnetic) for the complete and random regular graphs, due to a bimodality in the underlying distribution. While ferromagnetic interactions typically preclude NP-hardness results, here we work around this by introducing in an appropriate way mild antiferromagnetism, keeping the spectrum roughly within the same range. This allows us to exploit the bimodality of the aforementioned graphs and show the target NP-hardness by adapting suitably previous inapproximability techniques developed for antiferromagnetic systems.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2407_07645
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle On Sampling from Ising Models with Spectral Constraints
Galanis, Andreas
Kalavasis, Alkis
Kandiros, Anthimos Vardis
Data Structures and Algorithms
Probability
We consider the problem of sampling from the Ising model when the underlying interaction matrix has eigenvalues lying within an interval of length $γ$. Recent work in this setting has shown various algorithmic results that apply roughly when $γ< 1$, notably with nearly-linear running times based on the classical Glauber dynamics. However, the optimality of the range of $γ$ was not clear since previous inapproximability results developed for the antiferromagnetic case (where the matrix has entries $\leq 0$) apply only for $γ>2$. To this end, Kunisky (SODA'24) recently provided evidence that the problem becomes hard already when $γ>1$ based on the low-degree hardness for an inference problem on random matrices. Based on this, he conjectured that sampling from the Ising model in the same range of $γ$ is NP-hard. Here we confirm this conjecture, complementing in particular the known algorithmic results by showing NP-hardness results for approximately counting and sampling when $γ>1$, with strong inapproximability guarantees; we also obtain a more refined hardness result for matrices where only a constant number of entries per row are allowed to be non-zero. The main observation in our reductions is that, for $γ>1$, Glauber dynamics mixes slowly when the interactions are all positive (ferromagnetic) for the complete and random regular graphs, due to a bimodality in the underlying distribution. While ferromagnetic interactions typically preclude NP-hardness results, here we work around this by introducing in an appropriate way mild antiferromagnetism, keeping the spectrum roughly within the same range. This allows us to exploit the bimodality of the aforementioned graphs and show the target NP-hardness by adapting suitably previous inapproximability techniques developed for antiferromagnetic systems.
title On Sampling from Ising Models with Spectral Constraints
topic Data Structures and Algorithms
Probability
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.07645