Past Probability Seminars Spring 2020: Difference between revisions

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= Spring 2018 =
= Spring 2020 =


<b>Thursdays in 901 Van Vleck Hall at 2:25 PM</b>, unless otherwise noted.  
<b>Thursdays in 901 Van Vleck Hall at 2:30 PM</b>, unless otherwise noted.  
<b>We  usually end for questions at 3:15 PM.</b>
<b>We  usually end for questions at 3:20 PM.</b>


If you would like to sign up for the email list to receive seminar announcements then please send an email to join-probsem@lists.wisc.edu.
If you would like to sign up for the email list to receive seminar announcements then please send an email to  
[mailto:join-probsem@lists.wisc.edu join-probsem@lists.wisc.edu]


<!-- == Thursday, January 25, 2018, TBA== -->
== January 23, 2020, [https://www.math.wisc.edu/~seppalai/ Timo Seppalainen] (UW Madison) ==
'''Non-existence of bi-infinite geodesics in the exponential corner growth model
'''


== Thursday, February 1, 2018, [https://people.math.osu.edu/nguyen.1261/ Hoi Nguyen], [https://math.osu.edu/ OSU]==
Whether bi-infinite geodesics exist has been a significant open problem in first- and last-passage percolation since the mid-80s.  A non-existence proof  in the case of directed planar last-passage percolation with exponential weights was posted by Basu, Hoffman and Sly in  November 2018. Their proof utilizes estimates from integrable probability.   This talk describes an independent proof completed 10 months later that relies on couplings, coarse graining, and control of geodesics through planarity and increment-stationary last-passage percolation. Joint work with Marton Balazs and Ofer Busani (Bristol).


Title: '''A remark on long-range repulsion in spectrum'''
== January 30, 2020, [https://www.math.wisc.edu/people/vv-prof-directory Scott Smith] (UW Madison) ==
'''Quasi-linear parabolic equations with singular forcing'''


Abstract: In this talk we will address a "long-range" type repulsion among the singular values of random iid matrices, as well as among the eigenvalues of random Wigner matrices. We show evidence of repulsion under  arbitrary perturbation even in matrices of discrete entry distributions. In many cases our method yields nearly optimal bounds.
The classical solution theory for stochastic ODE's is centered around Ito's stochastic integral.  By intertwining ideas from analysis and probability, this approach extends to many PDE's, a canonical example being multiplicative stochastic heat equations driven by space-time white noise.  In both the ODE and PDE settings, the solution theory is beyond the scope of classical deterministic theory because of the ambiguity in multiplying a function with a white noise. The theory of rough paths and regularity structures provides a more quantitative understanding of this difficulty, leading to a more refined solution theory which efficiently divides the analytic and probabilistic aspects of the problem, and remarkably, even has an algebraic component.


== Thursday, February 8, 2018, [http://www.math.purdue.edu/~peterson/ Jon Peterson], [http://www.math.purdue.edu/ Purdue] ==
In this talk, we will discuss a new application of these ideas to stochastic heat equations where the strength of the diffusion is not constant but random, as it depends locally on the solution. These are known as quasi-linear equations. Our main result yields the deterministic side of a solution theory for these PDE's, modulo a suitable renormalization. Along the way, we identify a formally infinite series expansion of the solution which guides our analysis, reveals a nice algebraic structure, and encodes the counter-terms in the PDE. This is joint work with Felix Otto, Jonas Sauer, and Hendrik Weber.


Title: '''Quantitative CLTs for random walks in random environments'''
== February 6, 2020, [https://sites.google.com/site/cyleeken/ Cheuk-Yin Lee] (Michigan State) ==
'''Sample path properties of stochastic partial differential equations: modulus of continuity and multiple points'''


Abstract:The classical central limit theorem (CLT) states that for sums of a large number of i.i.d. random variables with finite variance, the distribution of the rescaled sum is approximately Gaussian. However, the statement of the central limit theorem doesn't give any quantitative error estimates for this approximation. Under slightly stronger moment assumptions, quantitative bounds for the CLT are given by the Berry-Esseen estimates. In this talk we will consider similar questions for CLTs for random walks in random environments (RWRE). That is, for certain models of RWRE it is known that the position of the random walk has a Gaussian limiting distribution, and we obtain quantitative error estimates on the rate of convergence to the Gaussian distribution for such RWRE. This talk is based on joint works with Sungwon Ahn and Xiaoqin Guo.
In this talk, we will discuss sample path properties of stochastic partial differential equations (SPDEs). We will present a sharp regularity result for the stochastic wave equation driven by an additive Gaussian noise that is white in time and colored in space. We prove the exact modulus of continuity via the property of local nondeterminism. We will also discuss the existence problem for multiple points (or self-intersections) of the sample paths of SPDEs. Our result shows that multiple points do not exist in the critical dimension for a large class of Gaussian random fields including the solution of a linear system of stochastic heat or wave equations.


== <span style="color:red"> Friday, 4pm </span> February 9, 2018, <span style="color:red">Van Vleck B239</span> [http://www.math.cmu.edu/~wes/ Wes Pegden], [http://www.math.cmu.edu/ CMU]==
== February 13, 2020, [http://www.jelena-diakonikolas.com/ Jelena Diakonikolas] (UW Madison) ==
'''Langevin Monte Carlo Without Smoothness'''


Langevin Monte Carlo (LMC) is an iterative algorithm used to generate samples from a distribution that is known only up to a normalizing constant. The nonasymptotic dependence of its mixing time on the dimension and target accuracy is understood mainly in the setting of smooth (gradient-Lipschitz) log-densities, a serious limitation for applications in machine learning. We remove this limitation by providing polynomial-time convergence guarantees for a variant of LMC in the setting of non-smooth log-concave distributions. At a high level, our results follow by leveraging the implicit smoothing of the log-density that comes from a small Gaussian perturbation that we add to the iterates of the algorithm and while controlling the bias and variance that are induced by this perturbation.
Based on joint work with Niladri Chatterji, Michael I. Jordan, and Peter L. Bartlett.


<div style="width:400px;height:75px;border:5px solid black">
== February 20, 2020, [https://math.berkeley.edu/~pmwood/ Philip Matchett Wood] (UC Berkeley) ==
<b><span style="color:red"> This is a probability-related colloquium---Please note the unusual room, day, and time! </span></b>
'''A replacement principle for perturbations of non-normal matrices'''
</div>


Title: '''The fractal nature of the Abelian Sandpile'''
There are certain non-normal matrices whose eigenvalues can change dramatically when a small perturbation is added.  However, when that perturbation is an iid random matrix, it appears that the eigenvalues become stable after perturbation and only change slightly when further small perturbations are added.  Much of the work is this situation has focused on iid random gaussian perturbations.  In this talk, we will discuss work on a universality result that allows for consideration of non-gaussian perturbations, and that shows that all perturbations satisfying certain conditions will produce the same limiting eigenvalue measure.  Interestingly, this even allows for deterministic perturbations to be considered.  Joint work with Sean O'Rourke.


Abstract: The Abelian Sandpile is a simple diffusion process on the integer lattice, in which configurations of chips disperse according to a simple rule: when a vertex has at least 4 chips, it can distribute one chip to each neighbor.
== February 27, 2020, No seminar ==
Introduced in the statistical physics community in the 1980s, the Abelian sandpile exhibits striking fractal behavior which long resisted rigorous mathematical analysis (or even a plausible explanation). We now have a relatively robust mathematical understanding of this fractal nature of the sandpile, which involves surprising connections between integer superharmonic functions on the lattice, discrete tilings of the plane, and Apollonian circle packings. In this talk, we will survey our work in this area, and discuss avenues of current and future research.
''' '''


== Thursday, February 15, 2018, Benedek Valkó, UW-Madison ==
== March 5, 2020, [https://www.ias.edu/scholars/jiaoyang-huang Jiaoyang Huang] (IAS) ==
''' Large Deviation Principles via Spherical Integrals'''


Title: '''Random matrices, operators and analytic functions'''
In this talk, I'll explain a framework to study the large deviation principle for matrix models and their quantized versions, by tilting the measures using the asymptotics of spherical integrals obtained by Guionnet and Zeitouni. As examples, we obtain


Abstract: Many of the important results of random matrix theory deal with limits of the eigenvalues of certain random matrix ensembles. In this talk I review some recent results on limits of `higher level objects' related to random matrices: the limits of random matrices viewed as operators and also limits of the corresponding characteristic functions.
1) the large deviation principle for the empirical distribution of the diagonal entries of $UB_NU^*$, for a sequence of $N\times N$ diagonal matrices $B_N$ and unitary/orthogonal Haar distributed matrices $U$;


Joint with B. Virág (Toronto/Budapest).
2) the large deviation upper bound for the empirical eigenvalue distribution of $A_N+UB_NU^*$, for two sequences of $N\times N$ diagonal matrices $A_N, B_N$, and their complementary lower bounds at "good" probability distributions;


== Thursday, February 22, 2018, [http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~raskutti/ Garvesh Raskutti] [https://www.stat.wisc.edu/ UW-Madison Stats] and [https://wid.wisc.edu/people/garvesh-raskutti/ WID]==
3) the large deviation principle for the Kostka number $K_{\lambda_N \eta_N}$, for two sequences of partitions $\lambda_N, \eta_N$ with at most $N$ rows;


Title: '''Estimation of large-scale time series network models'''
4) the large deviation upper bound for the Littlewood-Richardson coefficients $c_{\lambda_N \eta_N}^{\kappa_N}$, for three sequences of partitions $\lambda_N, \eta_N, \kappa_N$ with at most $N$ rows, and their complementary lower bounds at "good" probability distributions.


Abstract:
This is a joint work with Belinschi and Guionnet.
Estimating networks from multi-variate time series data
is an important problem that arises in many applications including
computational neuroscience, social network analysis, and many
others. Prior approaches either do not scale to multiple time series
or rely on very restrictive parametric assumptions in order to
guarantee mixing. In this talk, I present two approaches that provide
learning guarantees for large-scale multi-variate time series. The first
involves a parametric GLM framework where non-linear clipping and
saturation effects that guarantee mixing. The second involves a  
non-parametric sparse additive model framework where beta-mixing
conditions are considered. Learning guarantees are provided in both
cases and theoretical results are supported both by simulation results
and performance comparisons on various data examples.


<!-- == Thursday, March 1, 2018, TBA== -->
== March 12, 2020, No seminar ==
''' '''


== Thursday, March 8, 2018, [http://www.math.cmu.edu/~eemrah/ Elnur Emrah], [http://www.math.cmu.edu/index.php CMU] ==
== March 19, 2020, Spring break ==
''' '''


Title: '''Busemann limits for a corner growth model with deterministic inhomogeneity'''
== March 26, 2020, CANCELLED, [https://math.cornell.edu/philippe-sosoe Philippe Sosoe] (Cornell) ==
''' '''


Abstract:
== April 2, 2020, CANCELLED, [http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~tl/ Tianyu Liu] (UW Madison)==
Busemann limits have become a useful tool in study of geodesics in percolation models. The
''' '''
properties of these limits are closely related to the curvature of the limit shapes in the associated
growth models. In this talk, we will consider a corner growth model (CGM) with independent
exponential weights. The rates of the exponentials are deterministic and inhomogeneous across
columns and rows. (An equivalent model is the TASEP with step initial condition and with
particlewise and holewise deterministic disorder). In particular, the model lacks stationarity.
Under mild assumptions on the rates, the limit shape in our CGM exists, is concave and can
develop flat regions only near the axes. In contrast, flat regions can only occur away from the axes
in the CGM with general i.i.d. weights. This feature and stationarity have been instrumental in
proving the existence of the Busemann limits in past work. We will discuss how to adapt and
extend these arguments to establish the existence and main properties of the Busemann limits
in both flat and strictly concave regions for our CGM. The results we will present are from an
ongoing joint project with Chris Janjigian and Timo Sepp&auml;l&auml;inen.


== Thursday, March 15, 2018, [http://web.mst.edu/~huwen/ Wenqing Hu] [http://math.mst.edu/ Missouri S&T]==
== April 9, 2020, CANCELLED, [http://stanford.edu/~ajdunl2/ Alexander Dunlap] (Stanford) ==
''' '''


Title: '''A random perturbation approach to some stochastic approximation algorithms in optimization'''
== April 16, 2020, CANCELLED, [https://statistics.wharton.upenn.edu/profile/dingjian/ Jian Ding] (University of Pennsylvania) ==
''' '''


Abstract: Many large-scale learning problems in modern statistics and machine learning can be reduced to solving stochastic optimization problems, i.e., the search for (local) minimum points of the expectation of an objective random function (loss function). These optimization problems are usually solved by certain stochastic approximation algorithms, which are recursive update rules with random inputs in each iteration. In this talk, we will be considering various types of such stochastic approximation algorithms, including the stochastic gradient descent, the stochastic composite gradient descent, as well as the stochastic heavy-ball method. By introducing approximating diffusion processes to the discrete recursive schemes, we will analyze the convergence of the diffusion limits to these algorithms via delicate techniques in stochastic analysis and asymptotic methods, in particular random perturbations of dynamical systems.  This talk is based on a series of joint works with Chris Junchi Li (Princeton), Weijie Su (UPenn) and Haoyi Xiong (Missouri S&T).
== April 22-24, 2020, CANCELLED, [http://frg.int-prob.org/ FRG Integrable Probability] meeting ==


== Thursday, March 22, 2018, [http://math.mit.edu/~mustazee/ Mustazee Rahman], [http://math.mit.edu/index.php MIT]==
3-day event in Van Vleck 911
 
== April 23, 2020, CANCELLED, [http://www.hairer.org/ Martin Hairer] (Imperial College) ==
 
[https://www.math.wisc.edu/wiki/index.php/Colloquia Wolfgang Wasow Lecture] at 4pm in Van Vleck 911
 
== April 30, 2020, CANCELLED, [http://willperkins.org/ Will Perkins] (University of Illinois at Chicago) ==
''' '''


== Thursday, March 29, 2018, Spring Break ==
<!-- == Thursday, April 5, 2018, TBA== -->


== Thursday, April 12, 2018, [http://www.math.wisc.edu/~roch/ Sebastien Roch], [http://www.math.wisc.edu/ UW-Madison]==


== Thursday, April 19, 2018, TBA==
== Thursday, April 26, 2018, TBA==
== Thursday, May 3, 2018,TBA==
== Thursday, May 10, 2018, TBA==








== ==


[[Past Seminars]]
[[Past Seminars]]

Latest revision as of 22:18, 12 August 2020


Spring 2020

Thursdays in 901 Van Vleck Hall at 2:30 PM, unless otherwise noted. We usually end for questions at 3:20 PM.

If you would like to sign up for the email list to receive seminar announcements then please send an email to join-probsem@lists.wisc.edu


January 23, 2020, Timo Seppalainen (UW Madison)

Non-existence of bi-infinite geodesics in the exponential corner growth model

Whether bi-infinite geodesics exist has been a significant open problem in first- and last-passage percolation since the mid-80s. A non-existence proof in the case of directed planar last-passage percolation with exponential weights was posted by Basu, Hoffman and Sly in November 2018. Their proof utilizes estimates from integrable probability. This talk describes an independent proof completed 10 months later that relies on couplings, coarse graining, and control of geodesics through planarity and increment-stationary last-passage percolation. Joint work with Marton Balazs and Ofer Busani (Bristol).

January 30, 2020, Scott Smith (UW Madison)

Quasi-linear parabolic equations with singular forcing

The classical solution theory for stochastic ODE's is centered around Ito's stochastic integral. By intertwining ideas from analysis and probability, this approach extends to many PDE's, a canonical example being multiplicative stochastic heat equations driven by space-time white noise. In both the ODE and PDE settings, the solution theory is beyond the scope of classical deterministic theory because of the ambiguity in multiplying a function with a white noise. The theory of rough paths and regularity structures provides a more quantitative understanding of this difficulty, leading to a more refined solution theory which efficiently divides the analytic and probabilistic aspects of the problem, and remarkably, even has an algebraic component.

In this talk, we will discuss a new application of these ideas to stochastic heat equations where the strength of the diffusion is not constant but random, as it depends locally on the solution. These are known as quasi-linear equations. Our main result yields the deterministic side of a solution theory for these PDE's, modulo a suitable renormalization. Along the way, we identify a formally infinite series expansion of the solution which guides our analysis, reveals a nice algebraic structure, and encodes the counter-terms in the PDE. This is joint work with Felix Otto, Jonas Sauer, and Hendrik Weber.

February 6, 2020, Cheuk-Yin Lee (Michigan State)

Sample path properties of stochastic partial differential equations: modulus of continuity and multiple points

In this talk, we will discuss sample path properties of stochastic partial differential equations (SPDEs). We will present a sharp regularity result for the stochastic wave equation driven by an additive Gaussian noise that is white in time and colored in space. We prove the exact modulus of continuity via the property of local nondeterminism. We will also discuss the existence problem for multiple points (or self-intersections) of the sample paths of SPDEs. Our result shows that multiple points do not exist in the critical dimension for a large class of Gaussian random fields including the solution of a linear system of stochastic heat or wave equations.

February 13, 2020, Jelena Diakonikolas (UW Madison)

Langevin Monte Carlo Without Smoothness

Langevin Monte Carlo (LMC) is an iterative algorithm used to generate samples from a distribution that is known only up to a normalizing constant. The nonasymptotic dependence of its mixing time on the dimension and target accuracy is understood mainly in the setting of smooth (gradient-Lipschitz) log-densities, a serious limitation for applications in machine learning. We remove this limitation by providing polynomial-time convergence guarantees for a variant of LMC in the setting of non-smooth log-concave distributions. At a high level, our results follow by leveraging the implicit smoothing of the log-density that comes from a small Gaussian perturbation that we add to the iterates of the algorithm and while controlling the bias and variance that are induced by this perturbation. Based on joint work with Niladri Chatterji, Michael I. Jordan, and Peter L. Bartlett.

February 20, 2020, Philip Matchett Wood (UC Berkeley)

A replacement principle for perturbations of non-normal matrices

There are certain non-normal matrices whose eigenvalues can change dramatically when a small perturbation is added. However, when that perturbation is an iid random matrix, it appears that the eigenvalues become stable after perturbation and only change slightly when further small perturbations are added. Much of the work is this situation has focused on iid random gaussian perturbations. In this talk, we will discuss work on a universality result that allows for consideration of non-gaussian perturbations, and that shows that all perturbations satisfying certain conditions will produce the same limiting eigenvalue measure. Interestingly, this even allows for deterministic perturbations to be considered. Joint work with Sean O'Rourke.

February 27, 2020, No seminar

March 5, 2020, Jiaoyang Huang (IAS)

Large Deviation Principles via Spherical Integrals

In this talk, I'll explain a framework to study the large deviation principle for matrix models and their quantized versions, by tilting the measures using the asymptotics of spherical integrals obtained by Guionnet and Zeitouni. As examples, we obtain

1) the large deviation principle for the empirical distribution of the diagonal entries of $UB_NU^*$, for a sequence of $N\times N$ diagonal matrices $B_N$ and unitary/orthogonal Haar distributed matrices $U$;

2) the large deviation upper bound for the empirical eigenvalue distribution of $A_N+UB_NU^*$, for two sequences of $N\times N$ diagonal matrices $A_N, B_N$, and their complementary lower bounds at "good" probability distributions;

3) the large deviation principle for the Kostka number $K_{\lambda_N \eta_N}$, for two sequences of partitions $\lambda_N, \eta_N$ with at most $N$ rows;

4) the large deviation upper bound for the Littlewood-Richardson coefficients $c_{\lambda_N \eta_N}^{\kappa_N}$, for three sequences of partitions $\lambda_N, \eta_N, \kappa_N$ with at most $N$ rows, and their complementary lower bounds at "good" probability distributions.

This is a joint work with Belinschi and Guionnet.

March 12, 2020, No seminar

March 19, 2020, Spring break

March 26, 2020, CANCELLED, Philippe Sosoe (Cornell)

April 2, 2020, CANCELLED, Tianyu Liu (UW Madison)

April 9, 2020, CANCELLED, Alexander Dunlap (Stanford)

April 16, 2020, CANCELLED, Jian Ding (University of Pennsylvania)

April 22-24, 2020, CANCELLED, FRG Integrable Probability meeting

3-day event in Van Vleck 911

April 23, 2020, CANCELLED, Martin Hairer (Imperial College)

Wolfgang Wasow Lecture at 4pm in Van Vleck 911

April 30, 2020, CANCELLED, Will Perkins (University of Illinois at Chicago)





Past Seminars