中国物理B ›› 2014, Vol. 23 ›› Issue (7): 78901-078901.doi: 10.1088/1674-1056/23/7/078901

所属专题: TOPICAL REVIEW — Statistical Physics and Complex Systems

• TOPICAL REVIEW—Statistical Physics and Complex Systems • 上一篇    下一篇

Statistical physics of hard combinatorial optimization:Vertex cover problem

赵金华, 周海军   

  1. State Key Laboratory of Theoretical Physics, Institute of Theoretical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
  • 收稿日期:2014-03-20 修回日期:2014-05-22 出版日期:2014-07-15 发布日期:2014-07-15
  • 基金资助:
    Project supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (Grant No. 2013CB932804), the Knowledge Innovation Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. KJCX2-EW-J02), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 11121403 and 11225526).

Statistical physics of hard combinatorial optimization:Vertex cover problem

Zhao Jin-Hua (赵金华), Zhou Hai-Jun (周海军)   

  1. State Key Laboratory of Theoretical Physics, Institute of Theoretical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
  • Received:2014-03-20 Revised:2014-05-22 Online:2014-07-15 Published:2014-07-15
  • Contact: Zhou Hai-Jun E-mail:zhouhj@itp.ac.cn
  • About author:89.20.Ff; 75.10.Nr; 02.10.Ox; 05.10.–a
  • Supported by:
    Project supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (Grant No. 2013CB932804), the Knowledge Innovation Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. KJCX2-EW-J02), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 11121403 and 11225526).

摘要: Typical-case computation complexity is a research topic at the boundary of computer science, applied mathematics, and statistical physics. In the last twenty years, the replica-symmetry-breaking mean field theory of spin glasses and the associated message-passing algorithms have greatly deepened our understanding of typical-case computation complexity. In this paper, we use the vertex cover problem, a basic nondeterministic-polynomial (NP)-complete combinatorial optimization problem of wide application, as an example to introduce the statistical physical methods and algorithms. We do not go into the technical details but emphasize mainly the intuitive physical meanings of the message-passing equations. A nonfamiliar reader shall be able to understand to a large extent the physics behind the mean field approaches and to adjust the mean field methods in solving other optimization problems.

关键词: spin glass, energy minimization, replica symmetry breaking, belief propagation

Abstract: Typical-case computation complexity is a research topic at the boundary of computer science, applied mathematics, and statistical physics. In the last twenty years, the replica-symmetry-breaking mean field theory of spin glasses and the associated message-passing algorithms have greatly deepened our understanding of typical-case computation complexity. In this paper, we use the vertex cover problem, a basic nondeterministic-polynomial (NP)-complete combinatorial optimization problem of wide application, as an example to introduce the statistical physical methods and algorithms. We do not go into the technical details but emphasize mainly the intuitive physical meanings of the message-passing equations. A nonfamiliar reader shall be able to understand to a large extent the physics behind the mean field approaches and to adjust the mean field methods in solving other optimization problems.

Key words: spin glass, energy minimization, replica symmetry breaking, belief propagation

中图分类号:  (Computer science and technology)

  • 89.20.Ff
75.10.Nr (Spin-glass and other random models) 02.10.Ox (Combinatorics; graph theory)