Approximate counting, the Lovász local lemma, and inference in graphical models

DOI10.1145/3055399.3055428MaRDI QIDQ4977985zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Ankur Moitra

Publication date 17 August 2017

Published in Proceedings of the 49th Annual ACM SIGACT Symposium on Theory of Computing (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1610.04317

zbMATH Keywords

graphical modelsapproximate countingLovász local lemma

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Analysis of algorithms and problem complexity (68Q25) Computational difficulty of problems (lower bounds, completeness, difficulty of approximation, etc.) (68Q17) Modes of computation (nondeterministic, parallel, interactive, probabilistic, etc.) (68Q10) Approximation algorithms (68W25)

Abstract: In this paper we introduce a new approach for approximately counting in bounded degree systems with higher-order constraints. Our main result is an algorithm to approximately count the number of solutions to a CNF formula $Phi$ when the width is logarithmic in the maximum degree. This closes an exponential gap between the known upper and lower bounds. Moreover our algorithm extends straightforwardly to approximate sampling, which shows that under Lov'asz Local Lemma-like conditions it is not only possible to find a satisfying assignment, it is also possible to generate one approximately uniformly at random from the set of all satisfying assignments. Our approach is a significant departure from earlier techniques in approximate counting, and is based on a framework to bootstrap an oracle for computing marginal probabilities on individual variables. Finally, we give an application of our results to show that it is algorithmically possible to sample from the posterior distribution in an interesting class of graphical models.

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