Talk by David Levin (University of Oregon)

Date and Time: Thursday, October 23, 2008, 10:00 AM in AP&M 6402.

Title: Mixing of mean-field Glauber Dynamics

Abstract: I will describe the three phases for the mixing time (the time to equilibriate) of the Glauber dynamics for the Ising model on the complete graph on n vertices. At high temperature, the time required to mix is order n(log n), and there is a cut-off, meaning that in a window of order n, the distance to equilibrium drops from near one to near zero. At critical temperature, the dynamics mix in order n^(3/2) steps. At low temperature, the mixing is exponentially slow, but if the dynamics are restricted to one of the two modes of the stationary distribution, then it mixes in order n(log n) steps. Joint work with M. Luczak and Y. Peres.