Research

Sampling Colorings with Fixed Color Class Sizes

Abstract: In 1970 Hajnal and Szemer\'edi proved the conjecture of Erd\H{o}s that for a graph with maximum degree $\Delta$, there exists an equitable $\Delta+1$ coloring; that is a coloring where color class sizes differ by at most $1$. In 2007 Kierstead and Kostochka reproved their result and provided a polynomial-time algorithm which produces such a coloring. In this paper we study the problem of approximately sampling uniformly random equitable colorings. A series of works gives polynomial-time sampling algorithms for colorings without the color class constraint, the latest improvement being by Carlson and Vigoda for $q\geq 1.809 \Delta$. In this paper we give a polynomial-time sampling algorithm for equitable colorings when $q> 2\Delta$. Moreover, our results extend to colorings with small deviations from equitable (and as a corollary, establishing their existence). The proof uses the framework of the geometry of polynomials for multivariate polynomials, and as a consequence establishes a multivariate local Central Limit Theorem for color class sizes of uniform random colorings.

This is joint work with Will Perkins and Xavier Povill.

The paper was presented at ICALP 2026. Here is the arxiv link.

Sampling Sphere Packings with Continuum Glauber Dynamics

Abstract: Continuum Glauber dynamics is a spatial birth-death process whose stationary distribution is a Gibbs distribution. We establish a spectral gap for Continuum Glauber dynamics applied to Gibbs point processes with repulsive pair potentials, a well-known special case of which is the hard sphere model. For arbitrary-range repulsive pair potentials, we show that a continuous version of Spectral Independence suffices to establish a spectral gap. This extends the regime of activity for which Continuum Glauber dynamics is known to mix, yielding a simple efficient sampling algorithm for arbitrary-range pair potentials that matches the known efficient sampling regime for finite-range pair potentials currently based on specialized algorithms. As a consequence, we also improve the threshold up to which packings of fixed size/density can be efficiently sampled from a bounded domain, the first improvement since Kannan, Mahoney and Montenegro (2003). To prove these results, we develop continuous analogs of Spectral Independence and negative fields localization. We show that a stronger variant of zero-freeness implies Spectral Independence, which in turn allows us to run the localization scheme to boost the spectral gap of Continuum Glauber dynamics from smaller activity to larger activity. While this follows the high-level blueprint of Chen and Eldan (2022) for the discrete setting, we have to address several novel difficulties due to the continuous setting. Notably, we avoid discretization in the algorithm and the analysis and work directly in the continuous setting.

This is joint work with Santosh Vempala and Daniel Zhang.

Here is the link to the paper: arxiv link.

Fast and Slow Mixing of the Kawasaki Dynamics on Bounded-Degree Graphs

Appeared in APPROX/RANDOM 2024. Here is the link to the paper.

Abstract: We study the worst-case mixing time of the global Kawasaki dynamics for the fixed-magnetization Ising model on the class of graphs of maximum degree $\Delta$. Proving a conjecture of Carlson, Davies, Kolla, and Perkins, we show that below the tree uniqueness threshold, the Kawasaki dynamics mix rapidly for all magnetizations. Disproving a conjecture of Carlson, Davies, Kolla, and Perkins, we show that the regime of fast mixing does not extend throughout the regime of tractability for this model: there is a range of parameters for which there exist efficient sampling algorithms for the fixed-magnetization Ising model on max-degree $\Delta$ graphs, but the Kawasaki dynamics can take exponential time to mix. Our techniques involve showing spectral independence in the fixed-magnetization Ising model and proving a sharp threshold for the existence of multiple metastable states in the Ising model with external field on random regular graphs.

This is joint work with Marcus Pappik, Will Perkins, and Corrine Yap.

The paper was presented at Cargese Workshop. The 30 minute version of the slides can be found here: slides.

Coloring Locally Sparse Graphs

Abstract: A graph $G$ is $k$-locally sparse if for each vertex $v \in V(G)$, the subgraph induced by its neighborhood contains at most $k$ edges. Alon, Krivelevich, and Sudakov showed that for $f > 0$ if a graph $G$ of maximum degree $\Delta$ is $\Delta^2/f$-locally-sparse, then $\chi(G) = O\left(\Delta/\log f\right)$. We introduce a more general notion of local sparsity by defining graphs $G$ to be $(k, F)$-locally-sparse for some graph $F$ if for each vertex $v \in V(G)$ the subgraph induced by the neighborhood of $v$ contains at most $k$ copies of $F$. Employing the R\"{o}dl nibble method, we prove the following generalization of the above result: for every bipartite graph $F$, if $G$ is $(k, F)$-locally-sparse, then $\chi(G) = O\left( \Delta /\log\left(\Delta k^{-1/|V(F)|}\right)\right)$. This improves upon results of Davies, Kang, Pirot, and Sereni who consider the case when $F$ is a path. Our results also recover the best known bound on $\chi(G)$ when $G$ is $K_{1, t, t}$-free for $t \geq 4$, and hold for list and correspondence coloring in the more general so-called ``color-degree'' setting.

This is joint work with James Anderson and Abhishek Dhawan.

The paper was presented in 15 minute talk at the GT Combinatorics Seminar, GSCC, and CombinaTexas and 1 hour talk at the ACO Student Seminar. Here are the slides and slides, respectively.

Here is the arxiv link.

Bicrucial k-power-free permutations

Abstract: In this work, we prove that for every $k\geq 3$ there exist arbitrarily long bicrucial $k$-power-free permutations. We also show that for every $k\geq 3$ there exist right-crucial $k$-power-free permutations of any length at least $(k-1)(2k+1)$.

This is joint work with Margarita Akhmejanova, Alexandr Valyuzhenich, and Ilya Vorobyev.

Here is the arxiv link.