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A spectral gap throughout the high-temperature Sherrington–Kirkpatrick phase
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Abstract
For every fixed inverse temperature $0\lt \beta\lt 1$, we prove that the unscaled spectral gap of single-site heat-bath dynamics for the zero-field Gaussian Sherrington–Kirkpatrick model is bounded away from zero with probability tending to one over the disorder. Equivalently, the Gibbs law satisfies a dimension-free Poincaré inequality for all functions.
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Collected automatically by AI tools (Claude Opus 5.5 and GPT-6 Astra, 2026-10-21) and not checked by a person. May be wrong or incomplete. Report an error.
Comments and discussion
- Hang Du, Brice Huang, Sidhanth Mohanty, Amit Rajaraman, Sampling from the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick Model up to Criticality (arXiv:2610.17717, 13 Oct 2026). Section 1.2 ("Concurrent work by OpenAI") gives the authors' interpretation of this paper's proof (stochastic localization, a stability criterion for approximate TAP fixed points, a bad-event bound boosting to a full Poincaré inequality) and contrasts it with their own simulated-annealing approach; it does not state whether the proof was checked.
- Zhe Hou, Jingcheng Liu, Yixiao Yu, Simulated annealing and Weak Poincaré inequalities with inverse-polynomial accuracy for the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick model (arXiv:2610.09882, 7 Oct 2026). Section 1.3 ("Concurrent work") notes the Poincaré inequality with gap of order 1/n for Glauber dynamics at 0 ≤ β < 1 reported by OpenAI, and Section 1.4 says the authors deferred a separate result in view of OpenAI's announcements.
Formalization
- OpenAI, Family 227 Lean scope (lean/docs/227.md, 2026-10-06). States that the release's Lean development proves the dimension-free zero-field Gaussian SK Poincaré inequality of Theorem 1.1 for every fixed $0<\beta<1$ with probability tending to one, with uniform-site discrete gap at least $1/(C_\beta n)$ (comparator
SKHighTemperature.lean). [family-level]
Related prior literature mentioned by others
- Almut Roedder, Sampling from the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick Model (problem 15) (Randomstrasse101 open problems of 2024, 20 Dec 2024). Open problem asking whether Glauber dynamics for SK with arbitrary external field mixes in polynomial time up to β = 1; this paper addresses the zero-field case.
- David Jekel, Juspreet Singh Sandhu and Jonathan Shi, Potential Hessian Ascent: The Sherrington-Kirkpatrick Model (arXiv:2408.02360, 2024; revised 2026-05-20). Finding F3 of the AI-generated math-lineage review identifies its adaptive-diagonal matrix estimates as antecedents of the spectral-gap paper’s deterministic equivalents.
Possibly relevant literature (found by the agent, not checked)
- Ewan Davies, Holden Lee, Juspreet Singh Sandhu, Jonathan Shi, Weak Poincaré Inequalities via Approximate Stochastic Localization: Application to Sampling the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick Model (arXiv:2607.08160, 9 Jul 2026). Transfers a (weak) Poincaré inequality from approximations of the stochastic localization process to the SK Gibbs measure for β < 1/2, a strategy comparable to the transfer along Gaussian observations in Section 2 of this paper.
Digests and expositions
- Latent Seminar, SK dynamics across the temperature transition (2026-10-06). Explains the eight companions and selected proof mechanisms without independently verifying their proofs. [family-level]
- math-lineage, Precedence review: A spectral gap throughout the high-temperature Sherrington–Kirkpatrick phase (2026-10-13). This explicitly unvetted LLM report maps proposed antecedents for the localization, TAP stability, matrix estimates and terminal-gap arguments. [AI-generated per source]
Elsewhere
- Hexagon: Lower and Upper Bounds for Glauber Dynamics from Typical States of the Low-Temperature Sherrington–Kirkpatrick Model (AI-generated; human understanding: some)
- VibeMathed: Problem record
- Emergent Mind: family 227
Independent sites; their content is not reviewed here.
Cite
@misc{OAI:A-spectral-gap-throughout-the-high-temperature-Sherrington-Kirkpatrick-phase-September-24-2026,
author = {{OpenAI}},
title = {{A spectral gap throughout the high-temperature Sherrington--Kirkpatrick phase}},
howpublished = {OpenAI Math Release preprint
\href{https://github.com/openai/math/blob/main/preprints/A-spectral-gap-throughout-the-high-temperature-Sherrington-Kirkpatrick-phase-September-24-2026/main.pdf}{OAI:A-spectral-gap-throughout-the-high-temperature-Sherrington-Kirkpatrick-phase-September-24-2026}},
year = {2026}
}Lean formalization
OpenAI provides Lean files for this family: lean/docs/227.md. The Lean statements have not been checked by people against the paper's claims.
Family 227: Critical SK autocorrelation processes and dynamics across the temperature transition
For zero-field Gaussian SK heat-bath dynamics with rate-one updates per spin, proves worst-start cutoff on the $\log n$ scale for fixed $0\le\beta\lt 1$, mixing time $n^{2/3+o(1)}$ at β = 1, and stretched-exponential mixing from a Gibbs-sampled fixed starting configuration for β > 1, in probability over disorder. At criticality, rescaled stationary and quench autocorrelation processes have universal random limits for Gaussian and Rademacher disorder; the quench limit relaxes to the stationary limit.
Other papers in this family:
- Universality of critical quench autocorrelations in the Sherrington–Kirkpatrick model · October 5, 2026
- Functional universality of critical SK autocorrelations · October 5, 2026
- Cutoff throughout the high-temperature Sherrington–Kirkpatrick phase · September 24, 2026
- Critical slowing down in the Sherrington–Kirkpatrick model · September 24, 2026
- Stretched-exponential barriers for typical SK initial states · September 24, 2026
- A typical-start upper bound for low-temperature SK Glauber dynamics · September 24, 2026
- Critical mixing in the Sherrington–Kirkpatrick model · September 25, 2026