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Improved strong spatial mixing for colorings on trees

  • Charilaos Efthymiou
  • , Andreas Galanis
  • , Thomas P. Hayes
  • , Daniel Štefankovič
  • , Eric Vigoda
  • University of Warwick
  • University of Oxford
  • University of Rochester
  • Georgia Institute of Technology

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

6 Scopus citations

Abstract

Strong spatial mixing (SSM) is a form of correlation decay that has played an essential role in the design of approximate counting algorithms for spin systems. A notable example is the algorithm of Weitz (2006) for the hard-core model on weighted independent sets. We study SSM for the q-colorings problem on the infinite (d+1)-regular tree. Weak spatial mixing (WSM) captures whether the influence of the leaves on the root vanishes as the height of the tree grows. Jonasson (2002) established WSM when q > d + 1. In contrast, in SSM, we first fix a coloring on a subset of internal vertices, and we again ask if the influence of the leaves on the root is vanishing. It was known that SSM holds on the (d + 1)-regular tree when q > αd where α ≈ 1.763... is a constant that has arisen in a variety of results concerning random colorings. Here we improve on this bound by showing SSM for q > 1.59d. Our proof establishes an L2 contraction for the BP operator. For the contraction we bound the norm of the BP Jacobian by exploiting combinatorial properties of the coloring of the tree.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationApproximation, Randomization, and Combinatorial Optimization. Algorithms and Techniques, APPROX/RANDOM 2019
EditorsDimitris Achlioptas, Laszlo A. Vegh
PublisherSchloss Dagstuhl- Leibniz-Zentrum fur Informatik GmbH, Dagstuhl Publishing
ISBN (Electronic)9783959771252
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 2019
Event22nd International Conference on Approximation Algorithms for Combinatorial Optimization Problems and 23rd International Conference on Randomization and Computation, APPROX/RANDOM 2019 - Cambridge, United States
Duration: Sep 20 2019Sep 22 2019

Publication series

NameLeibniz International Proceedings in Informatics, LIPIcs
Volume145
ISSN (Print)1868-8969

Conference

Conference22nd International Conference on Approximation Algorithms for Combinatorial Optimization Problems and 23rd International Conference on Randomization and Computation, APPROX/RANDOM 2019
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityCambridge
Period09/20/1909/22/19

Keywords

  • Colorings
  • Phase transitions
  • Regular tree
  • Spatial mixing

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