{"id":357497,"date":"2017-01-25T10:38:23","date_gmt":"2017-01-25T18:38:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newed.any0.dpdns.org\/en-us\/research\/?post_type=msr-research-item&#038;p=357497"},"modified":"2018-10-16T19:59:42","modified_gmt":"2018-10-17T02:59:42","slug":"cover-times-blanket-times-majorizing-measures","status":"publish","type":"msr-research-item","link":"https:\/\/newed.any0.dpdns.org\/en-us\/research\/publication\/cover-times-blanket-times-majorizing-measures\/","title":{"rendered":"Cover Times, Blanket Times, And Majorizing Measures"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We exhibit a strong connection between cover times of graphs, Gaussian processes, and Talagrand&#8217;s theory of majorizing measures. In particular, we show that the cover time of any graph <span id=\"MathJax-Element-1-Frame\" class=\"MathJax\" tabindex=\"0\"><span id=\"MathJax-Span-1\" class=\"math\"><span id=\"MathJax-Span-2\" class=\"mrow\"><span id=\"MathJax-Span-3\" class=\"mi\">G<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span> is equivalent, up to universal constants, to the square of the expected maximum of the Gaussian free field on <span id=\"MathJax-Element-2-Frame\" class=\"MathJax\" tabindex=\"0\"><span id=\"MathJax-Span-4\" class=\"math\"><span id=\"MathJax-Span-5\" class=\"mrow\"><span id=\"MathJax-Span-6\" class=\"mi\">G<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>, scaled by the number of edges in <span id=\"MathJax-Element-3-Frame\" class=\"MathJax\" tabindex=\"0\"><span id=\"MathJax-Span-7\" class=\"math\"><span id=\"MathJax-Span-8\" class=\"mrow\"><span id=\"MathJax-Span-9\" class=\"mi\">G<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>. This allows us to resolve a number of open questions. We give a deterministic polynomial-time algorithm that computes the cover time to within an O(1) factor for any graph, answering a question of Aldous and Fill (1994). We also positively resolve the blanket time conjectures of Winkler and Zuckerman (1996), showing that for any graph, the blanket and cover times are within an O(1) factor. The best previous approximation factor for both these problems was <span id=\"MathJax-Element-4-Frame\" class=\"MathJax\" tabindex=\"0\"><span id=\"MathJax-Span-10\" class=\"math\"><span id=\"MathJax-Span-11\" class=\"mrow\"><span id=\"MathJax-Span-12\" class=\"mi\">O<\/span><span id=\"MathJax-Span-13\" class=\"mo\">(<\/span><span id=\"MathJax-Span-14\" class=\"mo\">(<\/span><span id=\"MathJax-Span-15\" class=\"mi\">log<\/span><span id=\"MathJax-Span-16\" class=\"mo\"><\/span><span id=\"MathJax-Span-17\" class=\"mi\">log<\/span><span id=\"MathJax-Span-18\" class=\"mo\"><\/span><span id=\"MathJax-Span-19\" class=\"mi\">n<\/span><span id=\"MathJax-Span-20\" class=\"msubsup\"><span id=\"MathJax-Span-21\" class=\"mo\">)<\/span><span id=\"MathJax-Span-22\" class=\"mn\">2<\/span><\/span><span id=\"MathJax-Span-23\" class=\"mo\">)<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span> for <span id=\"MathJax-Element-5-Frame\" class=\"MathJax\" tabindex=\"0\"><span id=\"MathJax-Span-24\" class=\"math\"><span id=\"MathJax-Span-25\" class=\"mrow\"><span id=\"MathJax-Span-26\" class=\"mi\">n<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>-vertex graphs, due to Kahn, Kim, Lovasz, and Vu (2000).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We exhibit a strong connection between cover times of graphs, Gaussian processes, and Talagrand&#8217;s theory of majorizing measures. In particular, we show that the cover time of any graph G is equivalent, up to universal constants, to the square of the expected maximum of the Gaussian free field on G, scaled by the number of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"msr-url-field":"","msr-podcast-episode":"","msrModifiedDate":"","msrModifiedDateEnabled":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_classifai_error":"","msr-author-ordering":null,"msr_publishername":"Princeton University","msr_publisher_other":"","msr_booktitle":"","msr_chapter":"","msr_edition":"","msr_editors":"","msr_how_published":"","msr_isbn":"","msr_issue":"","msr_journal":"Annals of Mathematics","msr_number":"","msr_organization":"","msr_pages_string":"1409-1471","msr_page_range_start":"1409","msr_page_range_end":"1471","msr_series":"","msr_volume":"","msr_copyright":"","msr_conference_name":"","msr_doi":"10.4007\/annals.2012.175.3.8","msr_arxiv_id":"","msr_s2_paper_id":"","msr_mag_id":"","msr_pubmed_id":"","msr_other_authors":"","msr_other_contributors":"","msr_speaker":"","msr_award":"","msr_affiliation":"","msr_institution":"","msr_host":"","msr_version":"","msr_duration":"","msr_original_fields_of_study":"","msr_release_tracker_id":"","msr_s2_match_type":"","msr_citation_count_updated":"","msr_published_date":"2012-05-01","msr_highlight_text":"","msr_notes":"","msr_longbiography":"","msr_publicationurl":"http:\/\/annals.math.princeton.edu\/2012\/175-3\/p08","msr_external_url":"","msr_secondary_video_url":"","msr_conference_url":"","msr_journal_url":"","msr_s2_pdf_url":"","msr_year":0,"msr_citation_count":0,"msr_influential_citations":0,"msr_reference_count":0,"msr_s2_match_confidence":0,"msr_microsoftintellectualproperty":true,"msr_s2_open_access":false,"msr_s2_author_ids":[],"msr_pub_ids":[],"msr_hide_image_in_river":0,"footnotes":""},"msr-research-highlight":[],"research-area":[13546],"msr-publication-type":[193715],"msr-publisher":[],"msr-focus-area":[],"msr-locale":[268875],"msr-post-option":[],"msr-field-of-study":[],"msr-conference":[],"msr-journal":[],"msr-impact-theme":[],"msr-pillar":[],"class_list":["post-357497","msr-research-item","type-msr-research-item","status-publish","hentry","msr-research-area-computational-sciences-mathematics","msr-locale-en_us"],"msr_publishername":"Princeton University","msr_edition":"","msr_affiliation":"","msr_published_date":"2012-05-01","msr_host":"","msr_duration":"","msr_version":"","msr_speaker":"","msr_other_contributors":"","msr_booktitle":"","msr_pages_string":"1409-1471","msr_chapter":"","msr_isbn":"","msr_journal":"Annals of Mathematics","msr_volume":"","msr_number":"","msr_editors":"","msr_series":"","msr_issue":"","msr_organization":"","msr_how_published":"","msr_notes":"","msr_highlight_text":"","msr_release_tracker_id":"","msr_original_fields_of_study":"","msr_download_urls":"","msr_external_url":"","msr_secondary_video_url":"","msr_longbiography":"","msr_microsoftintellectualproperty":1,"msr_main_download":"357500","msr_publicationurl":"http:\/\/annals.math.princeton.edu\/2012\/175-3\/p08","msr_doi":"10.4007\/annals.2012.175.3.8","msr_publication_uploader":[{"type":"file","title":"1004.4371v5","viewUrl":"https:\/\/newed.any0.dpdns.org\/en-us\/research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/1004.4371v5.pdf","id":357500,"label_id":0},{"type":"url","title":"http:\/\/annals.math.princeton.edu\/2012\/175-3\/p08","viewUrl":false,"id":false,"label_id":0},{"type":"doi","title":"10.4007\/annals.2012.175.3.8","viewUrl":false,"id":false,"label_id":0}],"msr_related_uploader":"","msr_citation_count":0,"msr_citation_count_updated":"","msr_s2_paper_id":"","msr_influential_citations":0,"msr_reference_count":0,"msr_arxiv_id":"","msr_s2_author_ids":[],"msr_s2_open_access":false,"msr_s2_pdf_url":null,"msr_attachments":[{"id":0,"url":"http:\/\/annals.math.princeton.edu\/2012\/175-3\/p08"}],"msr-author-ordering":[{"type":"text","value":"Jian Ding","user_id":0,"rest_url":false},{"type":"text","value":"James R. 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