Faster Mixing for Triangulations via Transport Flows

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Alev, Vedat Levi, Frishberg, Daniel, Sarantis, Michail, Tetali, Prasad
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2026
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author Alev, Vedat Levi
Frishberg, Daniel
Sarantis, Michail
Tetali, Prasad
author_facet Alev, Vedat Levi
Frishberg, Daniel
Sarantis, Michail
Tetali, Prasad
contents We prove an $\widetilde O(n^2)$ bound for the relaxation time and the log-Sobolev time (inverse log-Sobolev constant) of the classical triangulation flip chain on a convex $(n+2)$-gon, implying a mixing time of $\widetilde O(n^2)$. The previous state of the art for the mixing time of this chain, due to Eppstein and Frishberg, was $\widetilde O(n^3)$, while the best known lower bound on the mixing time, due to Molloy, Reed, and Steiger, is $Ω(n^{3/2})$. Our relaxation time bound makes significant progress towards Aldous' conjectured bound of $Θ(n^{3/2})$ for the relaxation time. We improve upon the analysis of Eppstein and Frishberg by further developing the framework of transport flows introduced in the work of Chen et al. In this light, our results can be seen as a more efficient way of using combinatorial decompositions to obtain functional inequalities for Markov chains. We hope our ideas will find other applications in the future.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_02067
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Faster Mixing for Triangulations via Transport Flows
Alev, Vedat Levi
Frishberg, Daniel
Sarantis, Michail
Tetali, Prasad
Combinatorics
Computational Geometry
Discrete Mathematics
Data Structures and Algorithms
05
G.2; G.3; F.2.0
We prove an $\widetilde O(n^2)$ bound for the relaxation time and the log-Sobolev time (inverse log-Sobolev constant) of the classical triangulation flip chain on a convex $(n+2)$-gon, implying a mixing time of $\widetilde O(n^2)$. The previous state of the art for the mixing time of this chain, due to Eppstein and Frishberg, was $\widetilde O(n^3)$, while the best known lower bound on the mixing time, due to Molloy, Reed, and Steiger, is $Ω(n^{3/2})$. Our relaxation time bound makes significant progress towards Aldous' conjectured bound of $Θ(n^{3/2})$ for the relaxation time. We improve upon the analysis of Eppstein and Frishberg by further developing the framework of transport flows introduced in the work of Chen et al. In this light, our results can be seen as a more efficient way of using combinatorial decompositions to obtain functional inequalities for Markov chains. We hope our ideas will find other applications in the future.
title Faster Mixing for Triangulations via Transport Flows
topic Combinatorics
Computational Geometry
Discrete Mathematics
Data Structures and Algorithms
05
G.2; G.3; F.2.0
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.02067