English

Phase transition in the assignment problem for random matrices

Computational Complexity 2007-05-23 v1 Statistical Mechanics

Abstract

We report an analytic and numerical study of a phase transition in a P problem (the assignment problem) that separates two phases whose representatives are the simple matching problem (an easy P problem) and the traveling salesman problem (a NP-complete problem). Like other phase transitions found in combinatoric problems (K-satisfiability, number partitioning) this can help to understand the nature of the difficulties in solving NP problems an to find more accurate algorithms for them.

Cite

@article{arxiv.cs/0511107,
  title  = {Phase transition in the assignment problem for random matrices},
  author = {J. G. Esteve and F. Falceto},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cs/0511107},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

7 pages, 5 figures; accepted for publication in Europhys. Lett. http://www.edpsciences.org/journal/index.cfm?edpsname=epl