Application of Threshold-Accepting to the Evaluation of the Discrepancy of a Set of Points

Abstract

Efficient routines for multidimensional numerical integration are provided by quasi--Monte Carlo methods. These methods are based on evaluating the integrand at a set of representative points of the integration area. A set may be called representative if it shows a low discrepancy. However, in dimensions higher than two and for a large number of points the evaluation of discrepancy becomes infeasible. The use of the efficient multiple-purpose heuristic threshold-accepting offers the possibility to obtain at least good approximations to the discrepancy of a given set of points. This paper presents an implementation of the threshold-accepting heuristic, an assessment of its performance for some small examples, and results for larger sets of points with unknown discrepancy.