English

The longest minimum-weight path in a complete graph

Combinatorics 2009-02-06 v2 Probability

Abstract

We consider the minimum-weight path between any pair of nodes of the n-vertex complete graph in which the weights of the edges are i.i.d. exponentially distributed random variables. We show that the longest of these minimum-weight paths has about \alpha^* \log nedgeswhereα 3.5911istheuniquesolutionoftheequation edges where \alpha^* ~ 3.5911 is the unique solution of the equation alpha log(alpha) - \alpha =1. This answers a question posed by Janson (1999).

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0809.0275,
  title  = {The longest minimum-weight path in a complete graph},
  author = {Louigi Addario-Berry and Nicolas Broutin and Gabor Lugosi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0809.0275},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

21 pages; minor corrections and clarifications

R2 v1 2026-06-21T11:15:45.397Z