Probability and Mathematical Physics Seminar

Probability and the City Seminar (at Columbia)

Time and Location:

Dec. 05, 2025 at 11AM; Columbia University, Room TBA

Speakers:

Kavita Ramanan, Brown and Kevin Hu, Columbia

Abstract:

Speaker: Kavita Ramanan (Brown)

TBA


Speaker: Kevin Hu (Columbia)

Title: Quantitative unimodular propagation of chaos

Abstract: Propagation of chaos, which is commonly studied in the context of mean-field interacting particle systems, describes the asymptotic independence of particles in the infinite-population limit. It was recently shown by Lacker, Ramanan, and Wu, that random pairs of particles in strongly interacting particle systems on sparse graphs become asymptotically independent as well. In this talk I will discuss recent work on quantitative estimates for this phenomenon, which we refer to as unimodular propagation of chaos. The proof utilizes coupling estimates for random graphs as well as a surprising connection between propagation of chaos and first-passage percolation. This is joint work with Kavita Ramanan and Dan Lacker.