Near-Optimal Parallel Approximate Counting via Sampling

2026-04-01

AI Summary

This work addresses the limitation of sequential adaptive sampling in approximate counting within parallel computation by introducing efficient non-adaptive and two-round adaptive sampling strategies. The authors reformulate the counting problem as estimating ratios of partition functions over a family of Gibbs distributions. Leveraging simulated annealing within the randomized NC (RNC) parallel framework, they present the first non-adaptive algorithm with sample complexity $O(q \log^2 h / \varepsilon^2)$ and design a two-round adaptive scheme achieving $O(q \log h / \varepsilon^2)$, approaching the theoretical optimum while significantly enhancing parallelizability. The proposed methods are successfully applied to achieve efficient approximate counting for antiferromagnetic two-spin systems, monomer-dimer models, and ferromagnetic Ising models.

Abstract

The computational equivalence between approximate counting and sampling is well established for polynomial-time algorithms. The most efficient general reduction from counting to sampling is achieved via simulated annealing, where the counting problem is formulated in terms of estimating the ratio $Q={Z(β_{\max})}/{Z(β_{\min})}$ between partition functions $Z(β)=\sum_{x\in Ω} \exp(βH(x))$ of Gibbs distributions $μ_β$ over $Ω$ with Hamiltonian $H$, given access to a sampling oracle that produces samples from $μ_β$ for $β\in [β_{\min}, β_{\max}]$. The best bound achieved by known annealing algorithms with relative error $\varepsilon$ is $O(q \log h / \varepsilon^2)$, where $q, h$ are parameters which respectively bound $\ln Q$ and $H$. However, all known algorithms attaining this near-optimal complexity are inherently sequential, or *adaptive*: the queried parameters $β$ depend on previous samples. We develop a simple non-adaptive algorithm for approximate counting using $O(q \log^2 h / \varepsilon^2)$ samples, as well as an algorithm that achieves $O(q \log h / \varepsilon^2)$ samples with just two rounds of adaptivity, matching the best sample complexity of sequential algorithms. These algorithms naturally give rise to work-efficient parallel (RNC) counting algorithms. We discuss applications to RNC counting algorithms for several classic models, including the anti-ferromagnetic 2-spin, monomer-dimer and ferromagnetic Ising models.

Problem

• approximate counting
• sampling
• parallel algorithms
• non-adaptive
• simulated annealing

Innovation

• approximate counting
• non-adaptive sampling
• parallel algorithms
• simulated annealing
• RNC