Related papers: Better $s$-$t$-Tours by Gao Trees
Many recent approximation algorithms for different variants of the traveling salesman problem (asymmetric TSP, graph TSP, s-t-path TSP) exploit the well-known fact that a solution of the natural linear programming relaxation can be written…
The Asymmetric Traveling Salesperson Path Problem (ATSPP) is one where, given an asymmetric metric space $(V,d)$ with specified vertices s and t, the goal is to find an s-t path of minimum length that passes through all the vertices in V.…
We show that there is a polynomial-time algorithm with approximation guarantee $\frac{3}{2}+\epsilon$ for the $s$-$t$-path TSP, for any fixed $\epsilon>0$. It is well known that Wolsey's analysis of Christofides' algorithm also works for…
We present a deterministic (1+sqrt(5))/2-approximation algorithm for the s-t path TSP for an arbitrary metric. Given a symmetric metric cost on n vertices including two prespecified endpoints, the problem is to find a shortest Hamiltonian…
We prove the approximation ratio 8/5 for the metric $\{s,t\}$-path-TSP problem, and more generally for shortest connected $T$-joins. The algorithm that achieves this ratio is the simple "Best of Many" version of Christofides' algorithm…
We give a new, strongly polynomial-time algorithm and improved analysis for the metric $s-t$ path TSP. It finds a tour of cost less than 1.53 times the optimum of the subtour elimination LP, while known examples show that 1.5 is a lower…
We give improved approximations for two metric Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) variants. In Ordered TSP (OTSP) we are given a linear ordering on a subset of nodes $o_1, \ldots, o_k$. The TSP solution must have that $o_{i+1}$ is visited at…
We study the metric $s$-$t$ path Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP). [An, Kleinberg, and Shmoys, STOC 2012] improved on the long standing $\frac{5}{3}$-approximation factor and presented an algorithm that achieves an approximation factor of…
The Metric Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) is a classical NP-hard optimization problem. The double-tree shortcutting method for Metric TSP yields an exponentially-sized space of TSP tours, each of which approximates the optimal solution…
Gottschalk and Vygen proved that every solution of the subtour elimination linear program for traveling salesman paths is a convex combination of more and more restrictive "generalized Gao-trees". We give a short proof of this fact, as a…
We prove new results for approximating the graphic TSP and some related problems. We obtain polynomial-time algorithms with improved approximation guarantees. For the graphic TSP itself, we improve the approximation ratio to 7/5. For a…
Prize-Collecting TSP is a variant of the traveling salesperson problem where one may drop vertices from the tour at the cost of vertex-dependent penalties. The quality of a solution is then measured by adding the length of the tour and the…
In the laminar-constrained spanning tree problem, the goal is to find a minimum-cost spanning tree which respects upper bounds on the number of times each cut in a given laminar family is crossed. This generalizes the well-studied…
Short spanning trees subject to additional constraints are important building blocks in various approximation algorithms. Especially in the context of the Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP), new techniques for finding spanning trees with…
We introduce the concept of Most, and Least, Compact Spanning Trees - denoted respectively by $T^*(G)$ and $T^\#(G)$ - of a simple, connected, undirected and unweighted graph $G(V, E, W)$. For a spanning tree $T(G) \in \mathcal{T}(G)$ to be…
In real life, it is always an urge to reach our goal in minimum effort i.e., it should have a minimum constrained path. The path may be shortest route in practical life, either physical or electronic medium. The scenario is to represents…
We introduce a topological feedback mechanism for the Travelling Salesman Problem (TSP) by analyzing the divergence between a tour and the minimum spanning tree (MST). Our key contribution is a canonical decomposition theorem that expresses…
We design a new LP-based algorithm for the graphic $s$-$t$ path Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP), which achieves the best approximation factor of 1.5. The algorithm is based on the idea of narrow cuts due to An, Kleinberg, and Shmoys. It…
This paper give a simple linear-time algorithm that, given a weighted digraph, finds a spanning tree that simultaneously approximates a shortest-path tree and a minimum spanning tree. The algorithm provides a continuous trade-off: given the…
We give a polynomial time, $(1+\epsilon)$-approximation algorithm for the traveling repairman problem (TRP) in the Euclidean plane and on weighted trees. This improves on the known quasi-polynomial time approximation schemes for these…