1998/01/13 by James Propp
Mathematics · #math.CO
published as Electronic Journal of Mathematics 4(2) (1997) R15 · 13 pages
arxiv created 1998/01/13 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30
This survey article describes a method for choosing uniformly at random from any finite set whose objects can be viewed as constituting a distributive lattice. The method is based on ideas of the author and David Wilson for using ``coupling from the past'' to remove initialization bias from Monte Carlo randomization. The article describes several applications to specific kinds of combinatorial objects such as tilings, constrained lattice paths, and alternating-sign matrices.