Counting Stationary Points of Random Landscapes as a Random Matrix Problem

Abstract

Finding the mean of the total number of stationary points for N-dimensional random Gaussian landscapes can be reduced to averaging the absolute value of characteristic polynomial of the corresponding Hessian. First such a reduction is illustrated for a class of models describing energy landscapes of elastic manifolds in random environment, and a general method of attacking the problem analytically is suggested. Then the exact solution to the problem [Phys. Rev. Lett. v.92 (2004) 240601] for a class of landscapes corresponding to the simplest, yet nontrivial "toy model" with N degrees of freedom is described. Asymptotic analysis reveals a phase transition to a glass-like state of the matter.