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Register a new userSampling Constraint Satisfaction Solutions in the Local Lemma Regime
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Kun He
Publication date
2020
fields
Informatics Engineering
and research's language is
English
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We give a Markov chain based algorithm for sampling almost uniform solutions of constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs). Assuming a canonical setting for the Lovasz local lemma, where each constraint is violated by a small number of forbidden local configurations, our sampling algorithm is accurate in a local lemma regime, and the running time is a fixed polynomial whose dependency on $n$ is close to linear, where $n$ is the number of variables. Our main approach is a new technique called state compression, which generalizes the mark/unmark paradigm of Moitra (Moitra, JACM, 2019), and can give fast local-lemma-based sampling algorithms. As concrete applications of our technique, we give the current best almost-uniform samplers for hypergraph colorings and for CNF solutions.
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We study the problem of sampling an approximately uniformly random satisfying assignment for atomic constraint satisfaction problems i.e. where each constraint is violated by only one assignment to its variables. Let $p$ denote the maximum probability of violation of any constraint and let $Delta$ denote the maximum degree of the line graph of the constraints. Our main result is a nearly-linear (in the number of variables) time algorithm for this problem, which is valid in a Lovasz local lemma type regime that is considerably less restrictive compared to previous works. In particular, we provide sampling algorithms for the uniform distribution on: (1) $q$-colorings of $k$-uniform hypergraphs with $Delta lesssim q^{(k-4)/3 + o_{q}(1)}.$ The exponent $1/3$ improves the previously best-known $1/7$ in the case $q, Delta = O(1)$ [Jain, Pham, Vuong; arXiv, 2020] and $1/9$ in the general case [Feng, He, Yin; STOC 2021]. (2) Satisfying assignments of Boolean $k$-CNF formulas with $Delta lesssim 2^{k/5.741}.$ The constant $5.741$ in the exponent improves the previously best-known $7$ in the case $k = O(1)$ [Jain, Pham, Vuong; arXiv, 2020] and $13$ in the general case [Feng, He, Yin; STOC 2021]. (3) Satisfying assignments of general atomic constraint satisfaction problems with $pcdot Delta^{7.043} lesssim 1.$ The constant $7.043$ improves upon the previously best-known constant of $350$ [Feng, He, Yin; STOC 2021]. At the heart of our analysis is a novel information-percolation type argument for showing the rapid mixing of the Glauber dynamics for a carefully constructed projection of the uniform distribution on satisfying assignments. Notably, there is no natural partial order on the space, and we believe that the techniques developed for the analysis may be of independent interest.
We introduce a novel Entropy-driven Monte Carlo (EdMC) strategy to efficiently sample solutions of random Constraint Satisfaction Problems (CSPs). First, we extend a recent result that, using a large-deviation analysis, shows that the geometry of the space of solutions of the Binary Perceptron Learning Problem (a prototypical CSP), contains regions of very high-density of solutions. Despite being sub-dominant, these regions can be found by optimizing a local entropy measure. Building on these results, we construct a fast solver that relies exclusively on a local entropy estimate, and can be applied to general CSPs. We describe its performance not only for the Perceptron Learning Problem but also for the random $K$-Satisfiabilty Problem (another prototypical CSP with a radically different structure), and show numerically that a simple zero-temperature Metropolis search in the smooth local entropy landscape can reach sub-dominant clusters of optimal solutions in a small number of steps, while standard Simulated Annealing either requires extremely long cooling procedures or just fails. We also discuss how the EdMC can heuristically be made even more efficient for the cases we studied.
Let $Phi = (V, mathcal{C})$ be a constraint satisfaction problem on variables $v_1,dots, v_n$ such that each constraint depends on at most $k$ variables and such that each variable assumes values in an alphabet of size at most $[q]$. Suppose that each constraint shares variables with at most $Delta$ constraints and that each constraint is violated with probability at most $p$ (under the product measure on its variables). We show that for $k, q = O(1)$, there is a deterministic, polynomial time algorithm to approximately count the number of satisfying assignments and a randomized, polynomial time algorithm to sample from approximately the uniform distribution on satisfying assignments, provided that [Ccdot q^{3}cdot k cdot p cdot Delta^{7} < 1, quad text{where }C text{ is an absolute constant.}] Previously, a result of this form was known essentially only in the special case when each constraint is violated by exactly one assignment to its variables. For the special case of $k$-CNF formulas, the term $Delta^{7}$ improves the previously best known $Delta^{60}$ for deterministic algorithms [Moitra, J.ACM, 2019] and $Delta^{13}$ for randomized algorithms [Feng et al., arXiv, 2020]. For the special case of properly $q$-coloring $k$-uniform hypergraphs, the term $Delta^{7}$ improves the previously best known $Delta^{14}$ for deterministic algorithms [Guo et al., SICOMP, 2019] and $Delta^{9}$ for randomized algorithms [Feng et al., arXiv, 2020].
Given a pair of graphs $textbf{A}$ and $textbf{B}$, the problems of deciding whether there exists either a homomorphism or an isomorphism from $textbf{A}$ to $textbf{B}$ have received a lot of attention. While graph homomorphism is known to be NP-complete, the complexity of the graph isomorphism problem is not fully understood. A well-known combinatorial heuristic for graph isomorphism is the Weisfeiler-Leman test together with its higher order variants. On the other hand, both problems can be reformulated as integer programs and various LP methods can be applied to obtain high-quality relaxations that can still be solved efficiently. We study so-called fractional relaxations of these programs in the more general context where $textbf{A}$ and $textbf{B}$ are not graphs but arbitrary relational structures. We give a combinatorial characterization of the Sherali-Adams hierarchy applied to the homomorphism problem in terms of fractional isomorphism. Collaterally, we also extend a number of known results from graph theory to give a characterization of the notion of fractional isomorphism for relational structures in terms of the Weisfeiler-Leman test, equitable partitions, and counting homomorphisms from trees. As a result, we obtain a description of the families of CSPs that are closed under Weisfeiler-Leman invariance in terms of their polymorphisms as well as decidability by the first level of the Sherali-Adams hierarchy.
For a finite relational structure A, let CSP(A) denote the CSP instances whose constraint relations are taken from A. The resulting family of problems CSP(A) has been considered heavily in a variety of computational contexts. In this article, we consider this family from the perspective of property testing: given an instance of a CSP and query access to an assignment, one wants to decide whether the assignment satisfies the instance, or is far from so doing. While previous works on this scenario studied concrete templates or restricted classes of structures, this article presents comprehensive classification theorems. Our first contribution is a dichotomy theorem completely characterizing the structures A such that CSP(A) is constant-query testable: (i) If A has a majority polymorphism and a Maltsev polymorphism, then CSP(A) is constant-query testable with one-sided error. (ii) Else, testing CSP(A) requires a super-constant number of queries. Let $exists$CSP(A) denote the extension of CSP(A) to instances which may include existentially quantified variables. Our second contribution is to classify all structures A in terms of the number of queries needed to test assignments to instances of $exists$CSP(A), with one-sided error. More specifically, we show the following trichotomy: (i) If A has a majority polymorphism and a Maltsev polymorphism, then $exists$CSP(A) is constant-query testable with one-sided error. (ii) Else, if A has a $(k + 1)$-ary near-unanimity polymorphism for some $k geq 2$, and no Maltsev polymorphism then $exists$CSP(A) is not constant-query testable (even with two-sided error) but is sublinear-query testable with one-sided error. (iii) Else, testing $exists$CSP(A) with one-sided error requires a linear number of queries.
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