Abstract. The cluster variation method has been developed into a general theoretical framework for treating short-range correlations in many-body systems after it was first proposed by Kikuchi in 1951. On the numerical side, a message-passing approach called generalized belief propagation (GBP) was proposed by Yedidia, Freeman and Weiss about a decade ago as a way of computing the minimal value of the cluster variational free energy and the marginal distributions of clusters of variables. However the GBP equations are often redundant, and it is quite a non-trivial task to make the GBP iteration converges to a fixed point. These drawbacks hinder the application of the GBP approach to finite-dimensional frustrated and disordered systems. In this work we report an alternative and simple derivation of the GBP equations starting from the partition function expression. Based on this derivation we propose a natural and systematic way of removing the redundance of the GBP equations. We apply the simplified generalized belief propagation (SGBP) equations to the two-dimensional and the three-dimensional ferromagnetic Ising model and Edwards-Anderson spin glass model. The numerical results confirm that the SGBP message-passing approach is able to achieve satisfactory performance on these model systems. We also suggest that a subset of the SGBP equations can be neglected in the numerical iteration process without affecting the final results. 1.
Abstract. The cluster variation method has been developed into a general theoretical framework for treating short-range correlations in many-body systems after it was first proposed by Kikuchi in 1951. On the numerical side, a message-passing approach called generalized belief propagation (GBP) was proposed by Yedidia, Freeman and Weiss about a decade ago as a way of computing the minimal value of the cluster variational free energy and the marginal distributions of clusters of variables. However the GBP equations are often redundant, and it is quite a non-trivial task to make the GBP iteration converges to a fixed point. These drawbacks hinder the application of the GBP approach to finite-dimensional frustrated and disordered systems. In this work we report an alternative and simple derivation of the GBP equations starting from the partition function expression. Based on this derivation we propose a natural and systematic way of removing the redundance of the GBP equations. We apply the simplified generalized belief propagation (SGBP) equations to the two-dimensional and the three-dimensional ferromagnetic Ising model and Edwards-Anderson spin glass model. The numerical results confirm that the SGBP message-passing approach is able to achieve satisfactory performance on these model systems. We also suggest that a subset of the SGBP equations can be neglected in the numerical iteration process without affecting the final results. 1.
Recent years have seen a growing interest in the use of belief propagation - an algorithm originally introduced for performing statistical inference on graphical models - for approximate, but highly efficient, tensor network contraction. Here, we detail how to apply generalized belief propagation (GBP) - where messages are passed within a hierarchy of overlapping regions of the tensor network - to approximately contract tensor networks and obtain accurate results. The original belief propagation algorithm is a corner case of this approach, corresponding to a particularly simple choice of regions of the tensor network. We implement the GBP algorithm for a number of different region choices on a range of two- and three-dimensional, infinite and finite tensor networks, solving the corresponding fixed point equations both numerically and, in certain tractable cases, analytically. Our examples include calculating the partition function of the fully frustrated Ising model, computing the ground state degeneracy of three-dimensional ice models, measuring observables on the deformed AKLT quantum state and evaluating the norm of randomly generated tensor network states.
The cluster variation method has been developed into a general theoretical framework for treating short-range correlations in many-body systems after it was first proposed by Kikuchi in 1951. On the numerical side, a message-passing approach called generalized belief propagation (GBP) was proposed by Yedidia, Freeman and Weiss about a decade ago as a way of computing the minimal value of the cluster variational free energy and the marginal distributions of clusters of variables. However the GBP equations are often redundant, and it is quite a non-trivial task to make the GBP iteration converges to a fixed point. These drawbacks hinder the application of the GBP approach to finite-dimensional frustrated and disordered systems. In this work we report an alternative and simple derivation of the GBP equations starting from the partition function. Based on this derivation we propose a natural and systematic way of removing the redundance of the GBP equations. We apply the simplified generalized belief propagation (SGBP) equations to the two-dimensional and the three-dimensional ferromagnetic Ising model and Edwards-Anderson spin glass model. The numerical results confirm that the SGBP message-passing approach is able to achieve satisfactory performance on these model systems. We also suggest that a subset of the SGBP equations can be neglected in the numerical iteration process without affecting the final results.
We study the performance of different message passing algorithms in the two dimensional Edwards Anderson model. We show that the standard Belief Propagation (BP) algorithm converges only at high temperature to a paramagnetic solution. Then, we test a Generalized Belief Propagation (GBP) algorithm, derived from a Cluster Variational Method (CVM) at the plaquette level. We compare its performance with BP and with other algorithms derived under the same approximation: Double Loop (DL) and a two-ways message passing algorithm (HAK). The plaquette-CVM approximation improves BP in at least three ways: the quality of the paramagnetic solution at high temperatures, a better estimate (lower) for the critical temperature, and the fact that the GBP message passing algorithm converges also to non paramagnetic solutions. The lack of convergence of the standard GBP message passing algorithm at low temperatures seems to be related to the implementation details and not to the appearance of long range order. In fact, we prove that a gauge invariance of the constrained CVM free energy can be exploited to derive a new message passing algorithm which converges at even lower temperatures. In all its region of convergence this new algorithm is faster than HAK and DL by some orders of magnitude.
This thesis addresses the problem of inference in factor graphs, especially the LDPC codes, almost solved by message-passing algorithms. In particular, the Belief Propagation algorithm (BP) is investigated as a particular message-passing algorithm whose suboptimality is discussed in the case where the factor graph has a loop-like topology. From the equivalence between the BP and the Bethe approximation in statistical physics that is generalized to the region-based approximation, is detailed the Generalized Belief Propagation algorithm (GBP), a message-passing algorithm between clusters of the factor graph. It is experimentally shown to surpass the BP in the cases where the clustering deals with the harmful topological structures that prevents the BP from rightly decoding any LDPC code, namely the trapping sets. We do not only confront the BP and the GBP algorithms according to their performance from the point of view of the channel coding with the error-rate, but also according to their dynamical behaviors for non-trivial error-events for which both algorithms can exhibit chaotic beahviors. By means of classical and original dynamical quantifiers, it is shown that the GBP algorithm can overcome the BP algorithm.
A new approximation of the cluster variational method is introduced for the three-dimensional Ising model on the simple cubic lattice . The maximal cluster is, as far as we know, the largest ever used in this method. A message-passing algorithm, generalized belief propagation, is used to minimize the variational free energy . Convergence properties and performance of the algorithm are investigated. The approximation is used to compute the spontaneous magnetization , which is then compared to previous results. Using the present results as the last step in a sequence of three cluster variational approximations, an extrapolation is obtained which captures the leading critical behavior with a good accuracy.
Belief propagation (BP) provides a scalable heuristic for contracting tensor networks on loopy graphs, but its success in quantum many-body settings has largely rested on empirical evidence. Developing upon a recently introduced cluster-expansion framework for tensor networks, we rigorously study the applicability of BP to many-body quantum systems. For a state represented as a PEPS satisfying a ``loop-decay" condition, we prove that BP supplemented by cluster corrections approximates local observables with exponentially small relative error, and we give explicit formulas expressing local expectation values as BP predictions dressed by connected clusters intersecting the observable region. This representation establishes a direct link between cluster corrections and physical correlation functions. As a result, we show that ``loop-decay" \emph{necessarily implies} exponential decay of connected correlations, yielding sharp, rigorous criteria for when BP can and cannot succeed, and ruling out its validity at critical points. Numerical simulations of the two- and three-dimensional transverse field Ising model at zero and finite temperature confirm our analytical predictions, demonstrating quantitative accuracy deep in gapped phases and systematic failure near criticality.