The Satisfiability Threshold for a Seemingly Intractable Random Constraint Satisfaction Problem

We determine the exact threshold of satisfiability for random instances of a particular NP-complete constraint satisfaction problem (CSP). This is the first random CSP model for which we have determined a precise linear satisfiability threshold, and for which random instances with density near that threshold appear to be computationally difficult. More formally, it is the first random CSP model for which the satisfiability threshold is known and which shares the following characteristics with random k-SAT for k >= 3. The problem is NP-complete, the satisfiability threshold occurs when there is a linear number of clauses, and a uniformly random instance with a linear number of clauses asymptotically almost surely has exponential resolution complexity.Comment: This is the long version of a paper that will be published in the SIAM Journal on Discrete Mathematics. This long version includes an appendix and a computer program. The contents of the paper are unchanged in the latest version. The format of the arxiv submission was changed so that the computer program will appear as an ancillary file. Some comments in the computer program were update

Reweighted belief propagation and quiet planting for random K-SAT

We study the random K-satisfiability problem using a partition function where each solution is reweighted according to the number of variables that satisfy every clause. We apply belief propagation and the related cavity method to the reweighted partition function. This allows us to obtain several new results on the properties of random K-satisfiability problem. In particular the reweighting allows to introduce a planted ensemble that generates instances that are, in some region of parameters, equivalent to random instances. We are hence able to generate at the same time a typical random SAT instance and one of its solutions. We study the relation between clustering and belief propagation fixed points and we give a direct evidence for the existence of purely entropic (rather than energetic) barriers between clusters in some region of parameters in the random K-satisfiability problem. We exhibit, in some large planted instances, solutions with a non-trivial whitening core; such solutions were known to exist but were so far never found on very large instances. Finally, we discuss algorithmic hardness of such planted instances and we determine a region of parameters in which planting leads to satisfiable benchmarks that, up to our knowledge, are the hardest known.Comment: 23 pages, 4 figures, revised for readability, stability expression correcte

On the cavity method for decimated random constraint satisfaction problems and the analysis of belief propagation guided decimation algorithms

We introduce a version of the cavity method for diluted mean-field spin models that allows the computation of thermodynamic quantities similar to the Franz-Parisi quenched potential in sparse random graph models. This method is developed in the particular case of partially decimated random constraint satisfaction problems. This allows to develop a theoretical understanding of a class of algorithms for solving constraint satisfaction problems, in which elementary degrees of freedom are sequentially assigned according to the results of a message passing procedure (belief-propagation). We confront this theoretical analysis to the results of extensive numerical simulations.Comment: 32 pages, 24 figure

Variants of Plane Diameter Completion

The {\sc Plane Diameter Completion} problem asks, given a plane graph $G$ and a positive integer $d$, if it is a spanning subgraph of a plane graph $H$ that has diameter at most $d$. We examine two variants of this problem where the input comes with another parameter $k$. In the first variant, called BPDC, $k$ upper bounds the total number of edges to be added and in the second, called BFPDC, $k$ upper bounds the number of additional edges per face. We prove that both problems are {\sf NP}-complete, the first even for 3-connected graphs of face-degree at most 4 and the second even when $k=1$ on 3-connected graphs of face-degree at most 5. In this paper we give parameterized algorithms for both problems that run in $O(n^{3})+2^{2^{O((kd)^2\log d)}}\cdot n$ steps.Comment: Accepted in IPEC 201