Belief Propagation and Loop Calculus for the Permanent of a Non-Negative Matrix

TL;DR

This paper derives an exact formula for computing the permanent of a non-negative matrix using belief propagation and loop calculus, linking graphical model marginals to permanent calculation.

Contribution

It provides a novel explicit expression for the permanent in terms of BP marginals and offers bounds to estimate the correction factor, connecting loop calculus with permanent computation.

Findings

Exact formula for permanent in terms of BP marginals and loop calculus.

Two bounds for estimating the correction factor in the formula.

Explicit connections between belief propagation, loop calculus, and permanent calculation.

Abstract

We consider computation of permanent of a positive $(N\times N)$ non-negative matrix, $P=(P_i^j|i,j=1,\cdots,N)$, or equivalently the problem of weighted counting of the perfect matchings over the complete bipartite graph $K_{N,N}$. The problem is known to be of likely exponential complexity. Stated as the partition function $Z$ of a graphical model, the problem allows exact Loop Calculus representation [Chertkov, Chernyak '06] in terms of an interior minimum of the Bethe Free Energy functional over non-integer doubly stochastic matrix of marginal beliefs, $\beta=(\beta_i^j|i,j=1,\cdots,N)$, also correspondent to a fixed point of the iterative message-passing algorithm of the Belief Propagation (BP) type. Our main result is an explicit expression of the exact partition function (permanent) in terms of the matrix of BP marginals, $\beta$, as $Z=\mbox{Perm}(P)=Z_{BP} \mbox{Perm}(\beta_i^j(1-\beta_i^j))/\prod_{i,j}(1-\beta_i^j)$, where $Z_{BP}$ is the BP expression for the permanent stated explicitly in terms if $\beta$. We give two derivations of the formula, a direct one based on the Bethe Free Energy and an alternative one combining the Ihara graph-$\zeta$ function and the Loop Calculus approaches. Assuming that the matrix $\beta$ of the Belief Propagation marginals is calculated, we provide two lower bounds and one upper-bound to estimate the multiplicative term. Two complementary lower bounds are based on the Gurvits-van der Waerden theorem and on a relation between the modified permanent and determinant respectively.