Workshop

Phase transition is qualitative change in a system due to a small quantitative change of a parameter. Outside physics, such transitions have been empirically observed in diverse areas such as computational complexity, congestion phenomena and optimization. The topics of this workshop include phase transitions in connection to random graphs, boolean functions, satisfiability problems, coding, reconstruction on trees and spinglasses. Special focus will be given to the study of the interplay between the replica method, local weak convergence and algorithmic aspects of reconstruction. A .pdf file is available with a list of speaker names and the title of their lecture. Tentative Workshop Schedule All sessions will be held in the Second Floor lecture Hall Mon. March 7 9:45 Welcome 10-10:50 1. Yuval Peres (Berkeley): Phase Transitions in Reconstruction 11-11:30 coffee 11:30-11:50 2. Jennifer Chayes (Microsoft):Prehistoric Spin Glasses 12:00-12:20 3. James Martin (Jussieu & MSRI):Reconstruction on regular trees and the hard-core model 12:30-14:00 Lunch 14:00-14:20 4. Alistair Sinclair (Berkeley):Reconstruction problems on trees: a simple criterion for impossibility 14:30-14:50 5. Svante Janson: Robust Reconstruction on trees 15:00-16:00 Break 16:00-16:50 6. Friedgut (Evans-MSRI) talk:Hunting for Sharp Thresholds Tue. March 8 9:30-9:50 7. Elchanan Mossel (Berkeley): Phase transition in Phylogeny 10:00-10:20 8. David Levin (Utah & MSRI):Phase transition in reconstructing bias of bit sequences 10:30-11:00 Coffee 11:00-11:20 9. Mike Molloy (Toronto):Sharp thresholds for random constraint satisfaction problems 11:30-11:50 10. Ryan O'Donnell (Microsoft):Correlation Distillation On Trees 12:00-14:00 Lunch 14:00-14:20 11. Krzysztof Oleszkiewicz (Warsaw):An invariance principle, with some applications to Boolean functions 14:30-14:50 12. Sourav Chatterjee (Stanford):Universality results: A general approach 15:00-15:30 Coffee 15:30-15:50 13. Christian Borgs (Microsoft):Proof of the local REM-conjecture for number partitioning 16:00-16:40 14. B\'ela Bollob\'as (Memphis): Random Voronoi Percolation in the Plane Wed. March 9 9:30-10:20 15. Riccardo Zecchina (ICTP):TBA 10:30-11:00 Coffee 11:00-11:20 16. Elitza Maneva (Berkeley):An alternative view of Survey Propagation for satisfiability 11:30-11:50 17. Balaji Prabhakar (Stanford):The asymptotic behavior of minimal matchings in the random assignment problem 12:00-12:20 18. Devavrat Shah (MSRI & MIT):Belief Propagation for finding Max Weight Matching Thu. March 10 9:30-10:20 19. David Aldous (Berkeley):Local weak convergence and the cavity method 10:30-11:00 Coffee 11:00-11:20 20. David Gamarnik (IBM):Applications of the local weak convergence method to random graph problems 11:30-11:50 21. Greg Sorkin (IBM):A linear-expected-time algorithm for Max Cut on sparse random graphs 12:00-14:00 Lunch 14:00-14:20 22. Rick Kenyon (UBC):Simple random surfaces 14:30-14:50 23. Robin Pemantle (UPENN):The best path in a tree is hard to find 15:00-15:30 Coffee 15:30-15:50 24. Van Vu (UCSD):(Sharp) thresholds for random regular graphs Fri. March 11 9:30-10:20 25. Marc Mezard (Paris Sud and MSRI): Hard constraints on random graphs: from lattice glasses to matching problems 10:30-11:00 Coffee 11:00-11:20 26. Dimitris Achlioptas:Random formulas have frozen variables 11:30-11:50 27. Andrea Montanari (Paris Sud and MSRI):Phase Transitions in Iterative Coding Systems 12:00-14:00 Lunch 14:00-14:20 28. Vladas Sidoravicius (IMPA & MSRI):TBA 14:30-14:50 30. David Revelle (Berkeley):Mixing times for random walks on finite lamplighter groups 15:00-15:30 Coffee 15:30-15:50 31. Roman Kotecky (Charles University and Microsoft):Phase coexistence and collapse of supersaturation Lodging: Rooms for this workshop are being held at the Rose Garden Inn at the special rate of $99/night, plus tax. To make reservations, please send an e-mail to: rosegardengm@aol.com. The cut-off date for reservations is Feb. 6! For alternative, short-term accommodations, click here.