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The Diffusion of Passive Tracers in Laminar Shear Flow
Published on: May 1, 2018
The Inverse of Exact Renormalization Group Flows as Statistical Inference
David S Berman1, Marc S Klinger2
1Centre for Theoretical Physics, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Road, London E1 4NS, UK.
Abstract:
We build on the view of the Exact Renormalization Group (ERG) as an instantiation of Optimal Transport described by a functional convection-diffusion equation. We provide a new information-theoretic perspective for understanding the ERG through the intermediary of Bayesian Statistical Inference. This connection is facilitated by the Dynamical Bayesian Inference scheme, which encodes Bayesian inference in the form of a one-parameter family of probability distributions solving an integro-differential equation derived from Bayes' law. In this note, we demonstrate how the Dynamical Bayesian Inference equation is, itself, equivalent to a diffusion equation, which we dub Bayesian Diffusion. By identifying the features that define Bayesian Diffusion and mapping them onto the features that define the ERG, we obtain a dictionary outlining how renormalization can be understood as the inverse of statistical inference.
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