Random sampling of contingency tables and partitions: Two practical examples of the Burnside process

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Diaconis, Persi, Howes, Michael
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Diaconis, Persi
Howes, Michael
author_facet Diaconis, Persi
Howes, Michael
contents This paper gives new, efficient algorithms for approximate uniform sampling of contingency tables and integer partitions. The algorithms use the Burnside process, a general algorithm for sampling a uniform orbit of a finite group acting on a finite set. We show that a technique called `lumping' can be used to derive efficient implementations of the Burnside process. For both contingency tables and partitions, the lumped processes have far lower per step complexity than the original Markov chains. We also define a second Markov chain for partitions called the reflected Burnside process. The reflected Burnside process maintains the computational advantages of the lumped process but empirically converges to the uniform distribution much more rapidly. By using the reflected Burnside process we can easily sample uniform partitions of size $10^{10}$.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_02818
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Random sampling of contingency tables and partitions: Two practical examples of the Burnside process
Diaconis, Persi
Howes, Michael
Computation
Combinatorics
Probability
60-08 (Primary) 60-04, 62-08 (Secondary)
This paper gives new, efficient algorithms for approximate uniform sampling of contingency tables and integer partitions. The algorithms use the Burnside process, a general algorithm for sampling a uniform orbit of a finite group acting on a finite set. We show that a technique called `lumping' can be used to derive efficient implementations of the Burnside process. For both contingency tables and partitions, the lumped processes have far lower per step complexity than the original Markov chains. We also define a second Markov chain for partitions called the reflected Burnside process. The reflected Burnside process maintains the computational advantages of the lumped process but empirically converges to the uniform distribution much more rapidly. By using the reflected Burnside process we can easily sample uniform partitions of size $10^{10}$.
title Random sampling of contingency tables and partitions: Two practical examples of the Burnside process
topic Computation
Combinatorics
Probability
60-08 (Primary) 60-04, 62-08 (Secondary)
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.02818