Related papers: PLS-complete problems with lexicographic cost func…
We consider a variant of the clustering problem for a complete weighted graph. The aim is to partition the nodes into clusters maximizing the sum of the edge weights within the clusters. This problem is known as the clique partitioning…
Local search has recently been applied to SMT problems over various arithmetic theories. Among these, nonlinear real arithmetic poses special challenges due to its uncountable solution space and potential need to solve higher-degree…
Max-k-Cut and correlation clustering are fundamental graph partitioning problems. For a graph with G=(V,E) with n vertices, the methods with the best approximation guarantees for Max-k-Cut and the Max-Agree variant of correlation clustering…
We present the first polynomial-time algorithm for computing a near-optimal \emph{flow}-expander decomposition. Given a graph $G$ and a parameter $\phi$, our algorithm removes at most a $\phi\log^{1+o(1)}n$ fraction of edges so that every…
Many graph-based learning problems can be cast as finding a good set of vertices nearby a seed set, and a powerful methodology for these problems is based on maximum flows. We introduce and analyze a new method for locally-biased…
We study the classic Max-Cut problem under multiple cardinality constraints, which we refer to as the Constrained Max-Cut problem. Given a graph $G=(V, E)$, a partition of the vertices into $c$ disjoint parts $V_1, \ldots, V_c$, and…
We present a novel algorithm that fuses the existing convex-programming based approach with heuristic information to find optimality guarantees and near-optimal paths for the Shortest Path Problem in the Graph of Convex Sets (SPP-GCS). Our…
Orbits of graphs under local complementation (LC) and edge local complementation (ELC) have been studied in several different contexts. For instance, there are connections between orbits of graphs and error-correcting codes. We define a new…
We study the {\em maximum duo-preservation string mapping} ({\sc Max-Duo}) problem, which is the complement of the well studied {\em minimum common string partition} ({\sc MCSP}) problem. Both problems have applications in many fields…
Local search is a powerful heuristic in optimization and computer science, the complexity of which was studied in the white box and black box models. In the black box model, we are given a graph $G = (V,E)$ and oracle access to a function…
Max-cut, clustering, and many other partitioning problems that are of significant importance to machine learning and other scientific fields are NP-hard, a reality that has motivated researchers to develop a wealth of approximation…
In this work we consider the problem of finding the minimum-weight loop cover of an undirected graph. This combinatorial optimization problem is called 2-matching and can be seen as a relaxation of the traveling salesman problem since one…
Symmetries occur naturally in CSP or SAT problems and are not very difficult to discover, but using them to prune the search space tends to be very challenging. Indeed, this usually requires finding specific elements in a group of…
Very recently, Khoury and Schild [FOCS 2025] showed that any randomized LOCAL algorithm that solves maximal matching requires $\Omega(\min\{\log \Delta, \log_\Delta n\})$ rounds, where $n$ is the number of nodes in the graph and $\Delta$ is…
We consider the question of orienting the edges in a graph $G$ such that every vertex has bounded out-degree. For graphs of arboricity $\alpha$, there is an orientation in which every vertex has out-degree at most $\alpha$ and, moreover,…
We propose two fixed-parameter tractable algorithms for the weighted Max-Cut problem on embedded 1-planar graphs parameterized by the crossing number $k$ of the given embedding. A graph is called 1-planar if it can be drawn in the plane…
We present the first super-linear lower bounds for natural graph problems in the CONGEST model, answering a long-standing open question. Specifically, we show that any exact computation of a minimum vertex cover or a maximum independent set…
We investigate the minimum cost of a wide class of combinatorial optimization problems over random bipartite geometric graphs in $\mathbb{R}^d$ where the edge cost between two points is given by a $p$-th power of their Euclidean distance.…
Local tensor methods are a class of optimization algorithms that was introduced in [Hastings,arXiv:1905.07047v2][1] as a classical analogue of the quantum approximate optimization algorithm (QAOA). These algorithms treat the cost function…
We resolve the longstanding open problem concerning the computational complexity of Max Cut on interval graphs by showing that it is NP-complete.