The Bethe Permanent of a Non-Negative Matrix

:  The Bethe Permanent of a Non-Negative Matrix Pascal O. Vontobel HP Laboratories HPL-2011-116 Bethe approximation; Bethe permanent; graph cover; partition function; perfect matching; permanent; sum-product algorithm It has recently been observed that the permanent of a non-negative matrix, i.e., of a matrix containing only non-negative real entries, can very well be approximated by solving a certain Bethe free energy function minimization problem with the help of the sum-product algorithm. We call the resulting approximation of the permanent the Bethe permanent. In this paper we give reasons why this approach to approximating the permanent works well. Namely, we show that the Bethe free energy function is convex and that the sum-product algorithm finds its minimum efficiently. We also discuss the fact that the permanent is lower bounded by the Bethe permanent, and we comment on potential upper bounds on the permanent based on the Bethe permanent. We also present a combinatorial ch...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2011
• Where: CORR
• Authors: Pascal O. Vontobel
• Keywords: Bethe, Bethe Free Energy, CORR 2011, Education, Permanent