For a simple (unbiased) random walk on a connected graph with @math vertices, the cover time (the expected number of steps it takes to visit all vertices) is at most @math . We consider locally biased random walks, in which the probability of traversing an edge depends on the degrees of its endpoints. We confirm a conjecture of Abdullah, Cooper and Draief [2015] that the min-degree local bias rule ensures a cover time of @math . For this we formulate and prove the following lemma about spanning trees. Let @math denote for edge @math the minimum degree among its two endpoints. We say that a weight function @math for the edges is feasible if it is nonnegative, dominated by @math (for every edge @math ) and the sum over all edges of the ratios @math equals @math . For example, in trees @math , and in regular graphs the sum of edge weights is @math . Lemma: for every feasible @math , the minimum weight spanning tree has total weight @math . For regular graphs, a similar lemma was proved by Kahn, Linial, Nisan and Saks [1989].
For simple random walks, the range of possible values of the cover time is well understood. Aleliunas al @cite_0 showed that for any connected graph, @math . That work also introduced the spanning tree argument that is used also in establishing other upper bounds cited below, and in fact provides upper bounds on @math and not just on @math . For regular graphs the upper bound can be improved to @math , as shown by Kahn al in @cite_10 . A more refined connection between regularity and cyclic cover time was provided by Coppersmith al @cite_8 who proved that for any connected graph @math ,
@cite_0 @cite_10 @cite_8
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This article deals with random walks on arbitrary graphs. We consider the cover time of finite graphs. That is, we study the expected time needed for a random walk on a finite graph to visit every vertex at least once. We establish an upper bound ofO(n2) for the expectation of the cover time for regular (or nearly regular) graphs. We prove a lower bound of Ω(n logn) for the expected cover time for trees. We present examples showing all our bounds to be tight. For an undirected graph and an optimal cyclic list of all its vertices, the cyclic cover time is the expected time it takes a simple random walk to travel from vertex to vertex along the list until it completes a full cycle. The main result of this paper is a characterization of the cyclic cover time in terms of simple and easy-to-compute graph properties. Namely, for any connected graph, the cyclic cover time is @math , where @math is the number of vertices in the graph, @math is the average degree of its vertices, and @math is the average of the inverse of the degree of its vertices. Other results obtained in the processes of proving the main theorem are a similar characterization of minimum resistance spanning trees of graphs, improved bounds on the cover time of graphs, and a simplified proof that the maximum commute time in any connected graph is at most @math . We study the cover time of multiple random walks. Given a graph G of n vertices, assume that k independent random walks start from the same vertex. The parameter of interest is the speed-up defined as the ratio between the cover time of one and the cover time of k random walks. Recently developed several bounds that are based on the quotient between the cover time and maximum hitting times. Their technique gives a speed-up of *** (k ) on many graphs, however, for many graph classes, k has to be bounded by @math . They also conjectured that, for any 1 ≤ k ≤ n , the speed-up is at most @math on any graph. As our main results, we prove the following: We present a new lower bound on the speed-up that depends on the mixing-time. It gives a speed-up of *** (k ) on many graphs, even if k is as large as n . We prove that the speed-up is @math on any graph. Under rather mild conditions, we can also improve this bound to @math , matching exactly the conjecture of We find the correct order of the speed-up for any value of 1 ≤ k ≤ n on hypercubes, random graphs and expanders. For d -dimensional torus graphs (d > 2), our bounds are tight up to a factor of @math . Our findings also reveal a surprisingly sharp dichotomy on several graphs (including d -dim. torus and hypercubes): up to a certain threshold the speed-up is k , while there is no additional speed-up above the threshold. Abstract For simple random walk on a finite tree, the cover time is the time taken to visit every vertex. For the balanced b-ary tree of height m, the cover time is shown to be asymptotic to 2m 2 b m + 1 ( log b) (b − 1) as m → ∞ . On the uniform random labeled tree on n vertices, we give a convincing heuristic argument that the mean time to cover and return to the root is asymptotic to 6(2π) 1 2 n 3 2 , and prove a weak O(n 3 2 ) upper bound. The argument rests upon a recursive formula for cover time of trees generated by a simple branching process. In this paper we show that on bounded degree graphs and general trees, the cover time of the simple random walk is asymptotically equal to the product of the number of edges and the square of the expected supremum of the Gaussian free field on the graph, assuming that the maximal hitting time is significantly smaller than the cover time. Previously, this was only proved for regular trees and the 2D lattice. Furthermore, for general trees, we derive exponential concentration for the cover time, which implies that the standard deviation of the cover time is bounded by the geometric mean of the cover time and the maximal hitting time. We prove upper and lower bounds and give an approximation algorithm for the cover time of the random walk on a graph. We introduce a parameter M motivated by the well-known Matthews bounds (P. Matthews, 1988) on the cover time, C, and prove that M 2<C= O(M(lnlnn) sup 2 ). We give a deterministic-polynomial time algorithm to approximate M within a factor of 2; this then approximates C within a factor of O((lnlnn) sup 2 ), improving the previous bound O(lnn) due to Matthews. The blanket time B was introduced by P. Winkler and D. Zuckerman (1996): it is the expectation of the first time when all vertices are visited within a constant factor of the number of times suggested by the stationary distribution. Obviously C spl les B. Winkler and Zuckerman conjectured B=O(C) and proved B=O(Clnn). Our bounds above are also valid for the blanket time, and so it follows that B=O(C(lnlnn) sup 2 ). The cover time of a graph is a celebrated example of a parameter that is easy to approximate using a randomized algorithm, but for which no constant factor deterministic polynomial time approximation is known. A breakthrough due to Kahn, Kim, Lovasz and Vu [25] yielded a (log logn)2 polynomial time approximation. We refine the upper bound of [25], and show that the resulting bound is sharp and explicitly computable in random graphs. Cooper and Frieze showed that the cover time of the largest component of the Erdős–Renyi random graph G(n, c n) in the supercritical regime with c > 1 fixed, is asymptotic to ϕ(c)nlog2n, where ϕ(c) → 1 as c ↓ 1. However, our new bound implies that the cover time for the critical Erdős–Renyi random graph G(n, 1 n) has order n, and shows how the cover time evolves from the critical window to the supercritical phase. Our general estimate also yields the order of the cover time for a variety of other concrete graphs, including critical percolation clusters on the Hamming hypercube 0, 1 n, on high-girth expanders, and on tori ℤdn for fixed large d. This approach also gives a simpler proof of a result of Aldous [2] that the cover time of a uniform labelled tree on k vertices is of order k3 2. For the graphs we consider, our results show that the blanket time, introduced by Winkler and Zuckerman [45], is within a constant factor of the cover time. Finally, we prove that for any connected graph, adding an edge can increase the cover time by at most a factor of 4. A general technique for proving lower bounds on expected covering times of random walks on graphs in terms of expected hitting times between vertices is given. This technique is used to prove (i) A tight bound of @math for the two-dimensional torus; (ii) A tight bound of @math for trees with maximum degree @math ; (iii) Tight bounds of @math for rapidly mixing walks on vertex transitive graphs, where @math denotes the maximum expected hitting time between vertices.In addition to these new results, the technique allows several known lower bounds on cover times to be systematically proved, often in a much simpler way.Finally, a different technique is used to prove an @math lower bound on the cover time, where @math is the second largest eigenvalue of the transition matrix. This was previously known only in the case where the walk starts in the stationary distribution [... The cover time is the expected time it takes a random walk to cover all vertices of a graph. Despite the fact that it can be approximated with arbitrary precision by a simple polynomial time Monte-Carlo algorithm which simulates the random walk, it is not known whether the cover time of a graph can be computed in deterministic polynomial time. In the present paper we establish a deterministic polynomial time algorithm that, for any graph and any starting vertex, approximates the cover time within polylogarithmic factors. More generally, our algorithm approximates the cover time for arbitrary reversible Markov chains. The new aspect of our algorithm is that the starting vertex of the random walk may be arbitrary and is given as part of the input, whereas previous deterministic approximation algorithms for the cover time assume that the walk starts at the worst possible vertex. In passing, we show that the starting vertex can make a difference of up to a multiplicative factor of Θ(n3 2 √log n) in the cover time of an n-vertex graph. This work proves that the fluctuations of the cover time of simple random walk in the discrete torus of dimension at least three with large side-length are governed by the Gumbel extreme value distribution. This result was conjectured for example in Aldous and Fill (Reversible Markov chains and random walks on graphs, in preparation). We also derive some corollaries which qualitatively describe “how” covering happens. In addition, we develop a new and stronger coupling of the model of random interlacements, introduced by Sznitman (Ann Math (2) 171(3):2039–2087, 2010), and random walk in the torus. This coupling is used to prove the cover time result and is also of independent interest. We study properties of multiple random walks on a graph under various assumptions of interaction between the particles. To give precise results, we make the analysis for random regular graphs. The cover time of a random walk on a random @math -regular graph was studied in [C. Cooper and A. Frieze, SIAM J. Discrete Math., 18 (2005), pp. 728-740], where it was shown with high probability (whp) that for @math the cover time is asymptotic to @math , where @math . In this paper we prove the following (whp) results, arising from the study of multiple random walks on a random regular graph @math . For @math independent walks on @math , the cover time @math is asymptotic to @math , where @math is the cover time of a single walk. For most starting positions, the expected number of steps before any of the walks meet is @math . If the walks can communicate when meeting at a vertex, we show that, for most starting positions, the expected time for @math walks to broadcast a single piece of information to each other is asymptotic to @math as @math . We also establish properties of walks where there are two types of particles, predator and prey, or where particles interact when they meet at a vertex by coalescing or by annihilating each other. For example, the expected extinction time of @math explosive particles ( @math even) tends to @math as @math . The case of @math coalescing particles, where one particle is initially located at each vertex, corresponds to a voter model defined as follows: Initially each vertex has a distinct opinion, and at each step each vertex changes its opinion to that of a random neighbor. The expected time for a unique opinion to emerge is the same as the expected time for all the particles to coalesce, which is asymptotic to @math . Combining results from the predator-prey and multiple random walk models allows us to compare expected detection times of all prey in the following scenarios: Both the predator and the prey move randomly, the prey moves randomly and the predators stay fixed, and the predators move randomly and the prey stays fixed. In all cases, with @math predators and @math prey the expected detection time is @math , where @math is the @math th harmonic number. It is just amazing that both of the mean hitting time and the cover time of a random walk on a finite graph, in which the vertex visited next is selected from the adjacent vertices at random with the same probability, are bounded by O(n3) for any undirected graph with order n, despite of the lack of global topological information. Thus a natural guess is that a better transition matrix is designable if more topological information is available. For any undirected connected graph G = (V,E), let P(β) = (puvβ)u,v∈V be a transition matrix defined by puvβ = exp [-βU(u, v)] Σw∈N(u) exp [-βU(u, w)] for u∈V, v∈N(u), where β is a real number, N(u) is the set of vertices adjacent to a vertex u, deg(u) = |N(u)|, and U(., .) is a potential function defined as U(u, v) = log (max deg(u), deg(v) ) for u∈V, v∈N(u). In this paper, we show that for any undirected graph with order n, the cover time and the mean hitting time with respect to P(1) are bounded by O(n2 log n) and O(n2), respectively. We further show that P(1) is best possible with respect to the mean hitting time, in the sense that the mean hitting time of a path graph of order n, with respect to any transition matrix, is Ω(n2). We pose a new and intriguing question motivated by distributed computing regarding random walks on graphs: How long does it take for several independent random walks, starting from the same vertex, to cover an entire graph? We study the cover time - the expected time required to visit every node in a graph at least once - and we show that for a large collection of interesting graphs, running many random walks in parallel yields a speed-up in the cover time that is linear in the number of parallel walks. We demonstrate that an exponential speed-up is sometimes possible, but that some natural graphs allow only a logarithmic speed-up. A problem related to ours (in which the walks start from some probablistic distribution on vertices) was previously studied in the context of space efficient algorithms for undirected s-t-connectivity and our results yield, in certain cases, an improvement upon some of the earlier bounds. Let @math be constant, and let @math denote the set of r-regular graphs with vertex set V = 1,2,...,n . Let G be chosen randomly from @math . We prove that with high probability ( ) the cover time of a random walk on G is asymptotic to @math . A token located at some vertex @math of a connected, undirected graph G on n vertices is said to be taking a “random walk” on G if, whenever it is instructed to move, it moves with equal probability to any of the neighbors of @math . The authors consider the following problem: Suppose that two tokens are placed on G, and at each tick of the clock a certain demon decides which of them is to make the next move. The demon is trying to keep the tokens apart as long as possible. What is the expected time M before they meet?The problem arises in the study of self-stabilizing systems, a topic of recent interest in distributed computing. Since previous upper bounds for M were exponential in n, the issue was to obtain a polynomial bound. The authors use a novel potential function argument to show that in the worst case @math . We consider a finite random walk on a weighted graph G; we show that the fraction of time spent in a set of vertices A converges to the stationary probability @math with error probability exponentially small in the length of the random walk and the square of the size of the deviation from @math . The exponential bound is in terms of the expansion of G and improves previous results of [D. Aldous, Probab. Engrg. Inform. Sci., 1 (1987), pp. 33--46], [L. Lovasz and M. Simonovits, Random Structures Algorithms , 4 (1993), pp. 359--412], [M. Ajtai, J. Komlos, and E. Szemeredi, Deterministic simulation of logspace, in Proc. 19th ACM Symp. on Theory of Computing, 1987]. We show that taking the sample average from one trajectory gives a more efficient estimate of @math than the standard method of generating independent sample points from several trajectories. Using this more efficient sampling method, we improve the algorithms of Jerrum and Sinclair for approximating the number of perfect matchings in a dense graph and for approximating the partition function of a ferromagnetic Ising system, and we give an efficient algorithm to estimate the entropy of a random walk on an unweighted graph. We study the cover time of a random walk on graphs G e Gn,p when @math . We prove that whp, the cover time, is asymptotic to @math . ©Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 2007 We prove that the expected time for a random walk to cover all n vertices of a graph is at least (1 + o(1))n In n. © 1995 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. We study the cover time of a random walk on the largest component of the random graph Gn,p. We determine its value up to a factor 1 + o(1) whenever np = c > 1, c = O(lnn). In particular, we show that the cover time is not monotone for c = Θ(lnn). We also determine the cover time of the k-cores, k ≥ 2. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 2008 We consider the cover time E>sub sub sub sub sub sub sub sub sub sub 2n^2. This improves the leadingconstant in previously known upper bounds. also provide upper bouhnds on E^+_uG, the expected timeto cover G and return to u