Reconstruction for the Potts model (Q717882)

An infinite rooted tree is considered where every vertex has \(d\) children. The spin \(\sigma_{\rho}\) on the root \(\rho\) is chosen from \({\mathcal C}=\{1,\ldots,q\}\) according to some initial distribution and then propagates along the edges of the tree according to a transition matrix \(M\) with \(M_{i,j}=M_{i,k}\) for \(j,k\in {\mathcal C}\setminus \{i\}\) and \(M_{i,i}=1-p\). The associated reconstruction problem naturally arises in computational biology, information theory and statistical physics. The most general result on the reconstruction problem is the Kesten-Stigum bound which states that a reconstruction problem is solvable when \(\lambda^2d>1\), where \(\lambda=1-pq/(q-1)\). The author proves the first exact reconstruction threshold in a nonbinary model establishing the Kesten-Stigum bound for the 3-state Potts model on regular trees of large degree \(d\). He further establishes that the Kesten-Stigum bound is not tight for the \(q\)-state Potts model when \(q\geq 5\). In this case, he gives the precise asymptotics of the threshold for fixed \(q\) as \(d\) goes to infinity.