Worst-Case Update Complexity of the Preisach Extremum Stack
This work provides a complete worst-case complexity analysis for a fundamental data structure in rate-independent hysteresis modeling, benefiting researchers in materials science and control theory.
The paper analyzes the worst-case update complexity of the Preisach extremum stack, proving that any exact minimal representation incurs Θ(k) output changes per step, but a finger-tree implementation achieves O(log k) worst-case time per operation.
The Preisach extremum stack $Π_n$ is the minimal sufficient statistic for the class $\mathcal{R}$ of computable rate-independent functionals in the Kolmogorov complexity sense [1]. Its standard update algorithm runs in amortised $O(1)$ time, but adversarial inputs can force $Θ(k)$ operations per step (where $k$ is the current depth). We establish a three-level complexity picture: (i) any compact exact $\mathcal{R}$-minimal representation incurs $Θ(k)$ output changes per step in the worst case (in a model-independent output-change metric); (ii) the monotone ordering of the Preisach wiping property enables binary search, reducing boundary detection to $O(log k)$, though physical deletion remains $Θ(d)$; (iii) a finger-tree implementation achieves $O(log k)$ worst-case time per step for both search and deletion, at the cost of a more complex data structure, while maintaining exact $\mathcal{R}$-minimality with no approximation error. These results settle the worst-case complexity of the Preisach extremum stack across all three levels.