Title:
Deterministic Volume Approximation of Polytopes

dc.contributor.advisor Vempala, Santosh S.
dc.contributor.author Cristian, Rares
dc.contributor.committeeMember Tetali, Prasad
dc.contributor.department Computer Science
dc.contributor.department Computer Science
dc.date.accessioned 2020-11-09T16:59:51Z
dc.date.available 2020-11-09T16:59:51Z
dc.date.created 2020-05
dc.date.issued 2020-05
dc.date.submitted May 2020
dc.date.updated 2020-11-09T16:59:51Z
dc.description.abstract Computing the volume of a polytope is an important longstudied question, with applications ranging from combinatorics to machine learning. While there are numerous randomized algorithms that efficiently approximate the volume, no deterministic algorithm is currently known to exist. This is part of a fundamental question in algorithms: when is randomness truly needed? We investigate whether the notion of chaos can be a substitute for randomness in this setting. There is a key distinction to be made here between chaos and randomness. Given the initial state of a system, we cannot predict the future state of a random process. On the other hand, a chaotic one is fully deterministic, although sensitive to initial conditions. That is, any small change in initial conditions will result in vastly different outcomes. Essentially all current methods for volume approximation rely on being able to sample uniformly from the body, with randomized algorithms doing this via random walks. Instead, we aim to create a deterministic dynamical billiard system that will uniformly cover the polytope. In particular, we consider the trajectory created by the free motion of a point particle inside the polytope with mirror-like reflections off the boundary. Additionally, we add a slight concave curvature to the facets which allows for a greater dispersion of the trajectory
dc.description.degree Undergraduate
dc.format.mimetype application/pdf
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/1853/63878
dc.language.iso en_US
dc.publisher Georgia Institute of Technology
dc.subject Geometry
dc.subject Sampling
dc.subject Chaos
dc.subject Billiards
dc.title Deterministic Volume Approximation of Polytopes
dc.type Text
dc.type.genre Undergraduate Thesis
dspace.entity.type Publication
local.contributor.advisor Vempala, Santosh S.
local.contributor.corporatename College of Computing
local.contributor.corporatename School of Computer Science
local.contributor.corporatename Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program
local.relation.ispartofseries Undergraduate Research Option Theses
relation.isAdvisorOfPublication 08846825-37f1-410b-b338-526d4f79815b
relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication c8892b3c-8db6-4b7b-a33a-1b67f7db2021
relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication 6b42174a-e0e1-40e3-a581-47bed0470a1e
relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication 0db885f5-939b-4de1-807b-f2ec73714200
relation.isSeriesOfPublication e1a827bd-cf25-4b83-ba24-70848b7036ac
thesis.degree.level Undergraduate
Files
Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
CRISTIAN-UNDERGRADUATERESEARCHOPTIONTHESIS-2020.pdf
Size:
1.47 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Description:
License bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
LICENSE.txt
Size:
3.87 KB
Format:
Plain Text
Description: