Cutoff for nonbacktracking random walks on sparse random graphs

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Publication:2012250



Abstract: A finite ergodic Markov chain is said to exhibit cutoff if its distance to stationarity remains close to 1 over a certain number of iterations and then abruptly drops to near 0 on a much shorter time scale. Discovered in the context of card shuffling (Aldous-Diaconis, 1986), this phenomenon is now believed to be rather typical among fast mixing Markov chains. Yet, establishing it rigorously often requires a challengingly detailed understanding of the underlying chain. Here we consider non-backtracking random walks on random graphs with a given degree sequence. Under a general sparsity condition, we establish the cutoff phenomenon, determine its precise window, and prove that the (suitably rescaled) cutoff profile approaches a remarkably simple, universal shape.


Based on a given vertex set \(V\) and a function deg: \(V\to \{2,3,\ldots \}\) \((N:=\sum_{v\in V}\text{deg}(v))\), one constructs a graph attaching deg(\(v\)) half-edges to each vertex \(v\in V\) \[ \mathcal{X}:=\{(v,i):v\in V,1\leq i\leq \text{deg}(v)\}. \] One chooses a pairing \(\pi \) on \(V\) and interprets every pair of matched half-edges \(\{x,\pi (x)\}\) as an edge between the corresponding vertices. The nonbacktracking random walk (NBRW) is a discrete-time Markov chain where the transitions to the neighbouring vertices are possible with uniform distribution. The paper studies the sparse regime where the number \(N\) of half-edges diverges at a faster rate than the maximum degree. The main result states the NBRW shows the so-called cutoff phenomenon, the distance to equilibrium remains close to 1 for a long time and then drops to 0 over a much shorter time scale, the cutoff shape approaches the tail distribution of the standard nomal distribution.




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