Exchangeable graphs (1)

Dominik Flegel

June 26, 2017

1 Introduction
So far, we have seen a bunch of properties and generalizations of exchange-
able random variables (many of them building on the basic theorem of de
Finetti). These highly technical results can be applied to obtain non-trivial
results regarding random edge colorings of suciently regular hypergraphs
on a countably innite vertex set S .

2 Framework
We start by establishing the setting considered during this presentation.
Unless stated otherwise, let S be a countably innite set.
Denition 2.1 (Hypergraphs). A hypergraph on S is a set G P(S). It
is k-uniform if e G |e| = k, and complete k-uniform if |e| = k
e G. By abuse of notation, we denote the latter as S
.


k

Note that in contrast to the usual case k = 2 with nite vertex set,
we describe our hypergraphs implicitly by specifying the edge set (which is
eectively nothing else than an array), dropping S in the denition. Based
on this, colored hypergraphs are now dened in the most intuitive way:
Denition 2.2 (Colored hypergraphs). For a nite set K , a K-colored,
k-uniform hypergraph on S is a map H : Sk K . A K-colored, k-

uniform hypergraph with loops is a map H : S k K that is invariant

under coordinate permutations of S k . Denote K as the palette of a coloring
H.

It's not unusual to extend this denition allowing standard Borel spaces
as palettes. However, as the set K corresponds to eligible colors of the
kedges, this nite restriction will do for our needs.

1
3 Structure of random colorings
Building on a denition installed in a previous talk, we can give a brief
description of exchangeability in our new context.
Denition 3.1 (Exchangeable hypergraphs). A random K-colored, k-uniform
hypergraph H (often identied with its law ) is called exchangeable if the
array (He )e(S ) is (jointly) exchangeable (as dened in Raaella's presenta-
k
tion, i.e. if the coloring distribution does not depend on vertex relabeling).
In order to consolidate the numerous denitions to this point, we state
the most basic (non-trivial) examples of exchangeable hypergraphs:
Example 1 (H-sampling random hypergraph). Let H be a xed K-colored,
k-uniform hypergraph with loops on a nite set V . Obtain a random K-
colored, k-uniform hypergraph on S by sampling for each s S a vertex
vs V independently and uniformly at random and setting

H 0 ({s1 , ..., sk }) := H(vs1 , ..., vsk ).

Its law H on K ( k ) is called H-sampling random hypergraph.

S

Clearly, this provides an exchangeable colored hypergraph as relabeling

of the vertices has no eect on a uniform sampling. However, we can not
expect all exchangeable hypergraphs to be obtained by this procedure (as
seen in the following second example).
Example 2 (Intermediate step sampling). Consider . A corresponding
S


3
exchangeable {0, 1} coloring can be constructed in two steps:
For each u S2 , sample independently and uniformly at random a

color ku from {0, 1}.

Identify each e S3 with its three subsets u1 , u2 , u3 S2 of order

two and color it according to the function

H :{0, 1} {0, 1} {0, 1} {0, 1}
(ku1 , ku2 , ku3 ) 7 1P3 kui >0 .
i=1

The general idea behind this extended kind of sampling is to allow for
more sources of randomness by conditioning on the information given by
colorings of lower ranked edges. In this case, the color of e simply is 1 if
at least one of the contained 2-edges is colored 1. For higher k, there is an
obvious extension of this technique by iterating the procedure, resulting in
a sampling construction passing through each rank in between.
Proposition 3.2. There is no H (as described in example 1) such that
= H , where is the intermediate step sampling random hypergraph.

2
Sketch of Proof. Consider a partition of S into two innite subsets (i.e. S =
2 ) and assume there is any H-sampling random hypergraph such that
S1 S
H = . For each s S1 , dene the -algebras T (s) := ((H(e))e({s}S2 ) )
3
and T := sS1 T (s). It can be shown that under the assumed vertex-
W
sampling-only structure of the random variables (H(e))e(S ) are relatively
3
independent over T . On top of that, if |e1 e2 | = 2 for e1 , e2 S3 (i.e. if

they share exactly one 2-edge) then the joint behavior of H(e1 ) and H(e2 )
is already independent from T , this yields a contradiction as in that case
25 7
{H(e1 ) = 1, H(e2 ) = 1} = 6= ( )2 = {H(e1 ) = 1} {H(e2 ) = 1}.
32 8

Surprisingly, we just need some minor generalizations (and appropriate

formulations) to actually fully understand the structure of exchangeable col-
ored hypergraphs, as the quintessence is already captured in the intermediate
step sampling.
Denition 3.3 (Ingredients). A sequence of ingredients is a sequence
(Zi )ki=0 of standard Borel spaces with Zk = K , a probability measure 0
on Z0 and probability kernels
i
(i) (i1)
Pi : Z0 Z1i Z2 2 ... Zi1 Zi

for i = 1, 2, ..., k that are symmetric under the natural coordinate-permuting

action of Sym(i) on the domain.
Denition 3.4 (Standard recipe). For a sequence of ingredients
(Z0 , 0 ), (Z1 , P1 ), ..., (Zk1 , Pk1 ), (K, Pk )

we dene the standard recipe to be the following procedure producing an

exchangeable colored hypergraph:
Sample z Z0 according to 0 .

For each s S , sample zs Z1 independently according to P1 (z , ).

For each u = {s1 , s2 } S2 , sample zu Z2 independently according

to P2 (z , zs1 , zs2 , ).
..
.

For each k -hyperedge e Sk , sample a color ze K independently

according to Pk (z , (zs )se , (zu )u(e) ..., (za )a( e ) , ).

2 k1

3
 Moreover, we dene that the ingredients yield upon following the
standard recipe for the induced law on K ( k ) .
S

The central result is that all exchangeable colorings are fully char-
acterized by following the standard recipe for an appropriate sequence of
ingredients:
Theorem 3.5 (Structure of uniform exchangeable hypergraph colorings).
For any k-uniform exchangeable colored random hypergraph there is some
sequence of ingredients

(Z0 , 0 ), (Z1 , P1 ), ..., (Zk1 , Pk1 ), (K, Pk )

which yields upon following the standard recipe.

A full proof from scratch of this is assertion can be found in Tim Austin's
"On exchangeable random variables and the statistics of large graphs and
hypergraphs ". Not only is it very similar to the presented bits of the Rep-
resentation theorem for (jointly) exchangeable arrays, both statements are
in fact equivalent. To see the connection between them, we shall give an
explanation on how to translate one representation into another.
Proof. Let be such an exchangeable coloring and f : [0, 1]2 K middle-
k

symmetric such that is represented by f (i.e. =Samp(f )). By construc-

tion, a collection of ingredients which yields is given by setting:
Zi := [0, 1] for i k 1

0 , Pi (ze , ) := 1 for all e S

, ze = (zb )b2e \e for i k 1


i

Pk (ze , ) := E[1{f (ze ,t)} |z] for all e Sk , ze = (zb )b2e \e where the

domain of f is interpreted as [0, 1]2 1 [0, 1].

k

The symmetric structure of Pi is obvious for i 6= k, in the case of Pk it

immediate follows from the corresponding property of f .
A comment on the reverse implication :
As we already know from the representation theorem, every which is in-
duced by following the standard recipe for some sequence of ingredients is
represented by an appropriate function f , simply because it is (jointly) ex-
changeable by construction. The determination of this function from the
ingredients however is not as immediate as the other way round. An insight
is given by the Lemma below.
Lemma 3.6 (Noise outsourcing). Suppose that X and Y are standard Borel
spaces, that is a probability measure on X and that P : X Y is a
probability kernel. Let be the Lebesgue measure on [0, 1]. Then there
1

4
is some Borel measurable map f : X [0, 1] Y such that, endowing
X [0, 1] with the product measure 1 , the kernel P (x, ) is a version of
the conditional distribution of f (x, ) given the rst coordinate x:

P (x, B) = E1 [1{f (x,t)B} |x]

Proof. Identify Y with a Borel subset of [0, 1], the function dened by

f (x, t) := sup{q Q [0, 1] : P (x, [0, q]) t}

has the desired properties.

The Lemma tells us, that the randomness in the choice of y Y according
to P (x, ) for x X can be correctly represented by rst choosing indepen-
dently and uniformly a value for some "noise parameter" t [0, 1], and then
choosing y according to a deterministic Y -valued map on (x, t). By identi-
fying the Zi with intervals [0, 1] inductively and replacing the corresponding
kernels up to Pi with deterministic functions fi (using outsourced noise pa-
rameters) step by step, the representing function f can be constructed from
the sequence of ingredients.

4 Outlook
The notion of hypergraph colorings can be extended and applied in various
ways, a few of them are branched shortly below.
As we are considering complete hypergraphs , some results can be
S


k
carried over to the study of random hypergraphs, by simply setting
K = {0, 1} with the interpretation of an edge being present or absent
depending on its color.
While performing the standard recipe, every edge up to a given size
is assigned to some value in a standard Borel space Zi under some
i , which is not stored in the nal result. With use of a generalized
palette K = (Ki )ki=0 (where Ki nite) and Borel maps i : Zi Ki
one can

obtain similar structural results for an exchangeable coloring
of k
S
:= ki=0 Si .

By identifying S k with the complete k-uniform, k-partite hypergraph

(consisting of all possible k-edges with endpoints in k distinct partition
classes) one can obtain a similar structural result (using a collection
of ingredients) equivalent to the Representation theorem for separately
exchangeable arrays.