Joint Applied Math and Probability Seminar
Fall Quarter 2003
3:15 p.m.
Sloan Mathematics Corner
Building 380, Room 380-C


Friday, September 26, 2003


Persi Diaconis
Stanford University

The Fastest Mixing Markov Chains on a Graph


Abstract:

The problem is: given a connected graph, how should we put weights on the edges to achieve a given stationary distribution and make the spectral gap as big as possible. The metropolis algorithm and max degree construction are widely used efforts. In a joint work with Steve Boyd and Lin Ziao, we set this up as a semi-definite programming problem and show that the optimal construction can be unboundedly better.

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