English

Efficient computation of middle levels Gray codes

Data Structures and Algorithms 2017-06-21 v4 Discrete Mathematics Combinatorics

Abstract

For any integer n1n\geq 1 a middle levels Gray code is a cyclic listing of all bitstrings of length 2n+12n+1 that have either nn or n+1n+1 entries equal to 1 such that any two consecutive bitstrings in the list differ in exactly one bit. The question whether such a Gray code exists for every n1n\geq 1 has been the subject of intensive research during the last 30 years, and has been answered affirmatively only recently [T. M\"utze. Proof of the middle levels conjecture. Proc. London Math. Soc., 112(4):677--713, 2016]. In this work we provide the first efficient algorithm to compute a middle levels Gray code. For a given bitstring, our algorithm computes the next \ell bitstrings in the Gray code in time O(n(1+n))\mathcal{O}(n\ell(1+\frac{n}{\ell})), which is O(n)\mathcal{O}(n) on average per bitstring provided that =Ω(n)\ell=\Omega(n).

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1506.07898,
  title  = {Efficient computation of middle levels Gray codes},
  author = {Torsten Mütze and Jerri Nummenpalo},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1506.07898},
  year   = {2017}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-22T10:00:31.607Z