English

Matroid-Based TSP Rounding for Half-Integral Solutions

Data Structures and Algorithms 2025-07-17 v2

Abstract

We show how to round any half-integral solution to the subtour-elimination relaxation for the TSP, while losing a less-than-1.5 factor. Such a rounding algorithm was recently given by Karlin, Klein, and Oveis Gharan based on sampling from max-entropy distributions. We build on an approach of Haddadan and Newman to show how sampling from the matroid intersection polytope, and a new use of max-entropy sampling, can give better guarantees.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2111.09290,
  title  = {Matroid-Based TSP Rounding for Half-Integral Solutions},
  author = {Anupam Gupta and Euiwoong Lee and Jason Li and Marcin Mucha and Heather Newman and Sherry Sarkar},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2111.09290},
  year   = {2025}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-24T07:42:32.431Z