Math 391 — Independent Study -- Mixing Times for Markov Chains — Summer 2009

Instructor: Shannon Starr, 1017 Hylan Building, Office hours: By appointment
Class time/place: Tuesday/Thursday, 2:30-3:45pm in Hylan 1017


Textbook: Markov Chains and Mixing Times by David Levin, Yuval Peres and Elizabeth Wilmer
http://www.oberlin.edu/markov/

Our goal is to cover the core material from Chapters 1 through 6, completely,
and selected topics from Chapters 7 through 12.

Grades will be based on the following:
10% Participation,
70% Homeworks (due every day, i.e., 2 per week),
20% Final (take-home).


Schedule:
Lecture 1: Tuesday, May 19th. Overview. HW1.pdf
Lecture 2: Tuesday, May 26th. Chapter 1.1-1.5. HW2.pdf
Lecture 3: Tuesday, June 1st. Chapter 1.5-1.7. HW3.pdf
Lecture 4: Thursday, June 3rd. Graphs and Trees.
Lecture 5: Thursday, June 18th. Lecture on continuous Markov Chains and Spectral Gaps.
Lecture 6: Thursday, June 25th. Chapter 2.1 and Optional Sampling Theorem. HW4.pdf


Back to UR Math courses webpage.


Shannon Starr
1017 Hylan Building
Department of Mathematics
University of Rochester
Rochester, NY 14627
Phone: (585) 275-9427
Fax: (585) 273-4655