1,214 research outputs found
Approximate Graph Coloring by Semidefinite Programming
We consider the problem of coloring k-colorable graphs with the fewest
possible colors. We present a randomized polynomial time algorithm that colors
a 3-colorable graph on vertices with min O(Delta^{1/3} log^{1/2} Delta log
n), O(n^{1/4} log^{1/2} n) colors where Delta is the maximum degree of any
vertex. Besides giving the best known approximation ratio in terms of n, this
marks the first non-trivial approximation result as a function of the maximum
degree Delta. This result can be generalized to k-colorable graphs to obtain a
coloring using min O(Delta^{1-2/k} log^{1/2} Delta log n), O(n^{1-3/(k+1)}
log^{1/2} n) colors. Our results are inspired by the recent work of Goemans and
Williamson who used an algorithm for semidefinite optimization problems, which
generalize linear programs, to obtain improved approximations for the MAX CUT
and MAX 2-SAT problems. An intriguing outcome of our work is a duality
relationship established between the value of the optimum solution to our
semidefinite program and the Lovasz theta-function. We show lower bounds on the
gap between the optimum solution of our semidefinite program and the actual
chromatic number; by duality this also demonstrates interesting new facts about
the theta-function
The Lovasz number of random graphs
We study the Lovasz number theta along with two further SDP relaxations
theta1, theta1/2 of the independence number and the corresponding relaxations
of the chromatic number on random graphs G(n,p). We prove that these
relaxations are concentrated about their means Moreover, extending a result of
Juhasz, we compute the asymptotic value of the relaxations for essentially the
entire range of edge probabilities p. As an application, we give an improved
algorithm for approximating the independence number in polynomial expected
time, thereby extending a result of Krivelevich and Vu. We also improve on the
analysis of an algorithm of Krivelevich for deciding whether G(n,p) is
k-colorable
Grothendieck inequalities for semidefinite programs with rank constraint
Grothendieck inequalities are fundamental inequalities which are frequently
used in many areas of mathematics and computer science. They can be interpreted
as upper bounds for the integrality gap between two optimization problems: a
difficult semidefinite program with rank-1 constraint and its easy semidefinite
relaxation where the rank constrained is dropped. For instance, the integrality
gap of the Goemans-Williamson approximation algorithm for MAX CUT can be seen
as a Grothendieck inequality. In this paper we consider Grothendieck
inequalities for ranks greater than 1 and we give two applications:
approximating ground states in the n-vector model in statistical mechanics and
XOR games in quantum information theory.Comment: 22 page
Computing the partition function for graph homomorphisms
We introduce the partition function of edge-colored graph homomorphisms, of
which the usual partition function of graph homomorphisms is a specialization,
and present an efficient algorithm to approximate it in a certain domain.
Corollaries include efficient algorithms for computing weighted sums
approximating the number of k-colorings and the number of independent sets in a
graph, as well as an efficient procedure to distinguish pairs of edge-colored
graphs with many color-preserving homomorphisms G --> H from pairs of graphs
that need to be substantially modified to acquire a color-preserving
homomorphism G --> H.Comment: constants are improved, following a suggestion by B. Buk
Inapproximability of Combinatorial Optimization Problems
We survey results on the hardness of approximating combinatorial optimization
problems
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