Vindicating a sophisticated but non-rigorous physics approach called the cavity method, we establish a formula for the mutual information in statistical inference problems induced by random graphs. This general result implies the conjecture on the information-theoretic threshold in the disassortative stochastic block model [: Phys. Rev. E (2011)] and allows us to pinpoint the exact condensation phase transition in random constraint satisfaction problems such as random graph coloring, thereby proving a conjecture from [: PNAS (2007)]. As a further application we establish the formula for the mutual information in Low-Density Generator Matrix codes as conjectured in [Montanari: IEEE Transactions on Information Theory (2005)]. The proofs provide a conceptual underpinning of the replica symmetric variant of the cavity method, and we expect that the approach will find many future applications.
A further open problem is to provide a rigorous justification of the more intricate replica symmetry breaking' (1RSB) version of the cavity method. The 1RSB version appears to be necessary to pinpoint, e.g., the @math -SAT or @math -colorability thresholds for @math , @math respectively. Currently there are but a very few examples where predictions from the 1RSB cavity method have been established rigorously @cite_84 @cite_67 @cite_16 , the most prominent one being the proof of the @math -SAT conjecture for large @math @cite_56 . That said, the upshot of the present paper is that for teacher-student-type problems as well as for the purpose of finding the condensation threshold, the replica symmetric cavity method is provably sufficient.
@cite_67 @cite_16 @cite_84 @cite_56
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In this paper we generalize to the case of diluted spin models and random combinatorial optimization problems a technique recently introduced by Guerra (cond-mat 0205123) to prove that the replica method generates variational bounds for disordered systems. We analyze a family of models that includes the Viana–Bray model, the diluted p-spin model or random XOR-SAT problem, and the random K-SAT problem, showing that the replica cavity method, at the various levels of approximation, provides systematic schemes to obtain lower bounds of the free-energy at all temperatures and of the ground state energy. In the case of K-SAT and XOR-SAT it thus gives upper bounds of the satisfiability threshold. Our analysis underlines deep connections with the cavity method which are not evident in the long range case. The one-step replica symmetry breaking cavity method is proposed as a new tool to investigate large deviations in random graph ensembles. The procedure hinges on a general connection between negative complexities and probabilities of rare samples in spin glass like models. This relation between large deviations and replica theory is explicited on different models where it is confronted to direct combinatorial calculations. We establish the satisfiability threshold for random k-SAT for all k ≥ k0. That is, there exists a limiting density αs(k) such that a random k-SAT formula of clause density α is with high probability satisfiable for α αs. The satisfiability threshold αs is given explicitly by the one-step replica symmetry breaking (1SRB) prediction from statistical physics. We believe that our methods may apply to a range of random constraint satisfaction problems in the 1RSB class. We consider the random regular k-nae- sat problem with n variables, each appearing in exactly d clauses. For all k exceeding an absolute constant ( k _0 ), we establish explicitly the satisfiability threshold ( d_ d_ (k) ). We prove that for ( d d_ ) the problem is unsatisfiable with high probability. If the threshold ( d_ ) lands exactly on an integer, we show that the problem is satisfiable with probability bounded away from both zero and one. This is the first result to locate the exact satisfiability threshold in a random constraint satisfaction problem exhibiting the condensation phenomenon identified by [Proc Natl Acad Sci 104(25):10318–10323, 2007]. Our proof verifies the one-step replica symmetry breaking formalism for this model. We expect our methods to be applicable to a broad range of random constraint satisfaction problems and combinatorial problems on random graphs.