Book Details
Orange Code:35044
Paperback:382 pages
Publications:
Categories:
Sections:
1. Introduction: Where Statistical Physics Meets Computation2. Threshold Phenomena and Influence: Perspectives from Mathematics, Computer Science, and Economics3. Analyzing Search Algorithms with Physical Methods4. Constraint Satisfaction by Survey Propagation5. The Easiest Hard Problem: Number Partitioning6. Ground States, Energy Landscape, and Low-Temperature Dynamics of ± J Spin Glasses7. The Satisfiability Threshold Conjecture: Techniques Behind Upper Bound Improvements8. Proving Conditional Randomness using the Principle of Deferred Decisions9. Phase Transitions for Quantum Search Algorithms10. Towards a Predictive Computational Complexity Theory for Periodically Specified Problems: A Survey
Description:
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Computer science and physics have been closely linked since the birth of modern computing. In recent years, an interdisciplinary area has blossomed at the junction of these fields, connecting insights from statistical physics with basic computational challenges. Researchers have successfully applied techniques from the study of phase transitions to analyze NP-complete problems such as satisfiability and graph coloring. This is leading to a new understanding of the structure of these problems, and of how algorithms perform on them.
Computational Complexity and Statistical Physics will serve as a standard reference and pedagogical aid to statistical physics methods in computer science, with a particular focus on phase transitions in combinatorial problems. Addressed to a broad range of readers, the book includes substantial background material along with current research by leading computer scientists, mathematicians, and physicists. It will prepare students and researchers from all of these fields to contribute to this exciting area.
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