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Nov 10

This document discusses NP-complete and NP-hard problems. It begins by introducing the concepts of polynomial time algorithms and problems with exponential solution spaces like the travelling salesman problem. It then defines NP-complete problems as problems in NP that are as hard as any other problem in NP. It provides examples like 3-SAT and set cover. The document notes that if a single NP-complete problem could be solved in polynomial time, it would prove P=NP. It concludes by discussing approximation algorithms for NP-hard problems like using minimum spanning trees as an approximation for travelling salesman problems.

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14 views12 pages

Nov 10

This document discusses NP-complete and NP-hard problems. It begins by introducing the concepts of polynomial time algorithms and problems with exponential solution spaces like the travelling salesman problem. It then defines NP-complete problems as problems in NP that are as hard as any other problem in NP. It provides examples like 3-SAT and set cover. The document notes that if a single NP-complete problem could be solved in polynomial time, it would prove P=NP. It concludes by discussing approximation algorithms for NP-hard problems like using minimum spanning trees as an approximation for travelling salesman problems.

Uploaded by

Jee Aspirant
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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NP-Complete & NP-Hard

1
Introduction
Saw efficient POLYNOMIAL TIME algorithms for finding a
shortest path in a graph, a graph’s minimum spanning tree, etc.

They are intelligent ways of reducing the search space of solutions!

A graph with n vertices can have upto nn-2 spanning trees (complete
graph) [Kirchhoff’s Theorem], and a typical graph has an exponential
number of paths from s to t (complete: (n-2)!).

So exhaustive search would be of exponential (or worse) complexity


2
But for certain problems, the most efficient solution invented till
now is still of exponential complexity, may not much simpler
than exhaustive search.

Satisfiability (SAT) AND OR

Either find an assignment such that the result is TRUE or


report that it does not exist.
3-SAT (problem with max 3 literals in a clause, 1&2-SATs are Polynomial) 3
n variables in the expression means 2n possibilities, and an
exhaustive search through them to perform the task on all clauses.

A search problem must have the property that any proposed


solution S to an instance I can be quickly checked for correctness

Input size 4
Travelling Salesman Problem (TSP)
Seeing TSP as a search problem. (slightly different!)

Check whether:
A
Exhaustive search would be worse than exponential! Our DP TSP
algorithm was also exponential!

5
Non-deterministic* polynomial time
We denote the class of all search problems by NP

Most experts think so, but not proven.


* Turing machine 6
Reduction: Polynomial time Polynomial time

The converse may not be true!

If A is hard then B is also hard, if B is efficient so is A.


A problem is NP-hard if all search problems in NP reduce to it. If a NP-
hard problem is in NP (or is a search problem), then it is NP-complete.
If even one NP-complete problem is in P, then P = NP. Note: P ⊆ NP 7
Largest subset of graph vertices
with no edge between them

(Set Cover)

(Knapsack)
Largest vertex subset that forms a
complete graph (all edges present)
8
Why only P, NP?
Subset to Superset? P then NP?

EXPTIME - The set of all decision problems that are solvable by a


deterministic Turing machine in exponential time.
NEXPTIME - The set of decision problems that can be solved by a non-
deterministic Turing machine in exponential time.
PSPACE - The set of all decision problems that can be solved by a
Turing machine using a polynomial amount of space.
EXPSPACE - The set of all decision problems solvable by a Turing
machine in an exponential amount of space.

We also have L, NL, NL-hard, NL-complete… NL ⊆ P


9
Branch & Bound for Travelling Salesman
Problem:

Starting point

Cost (lower bound): Cost of completed partial tour + cost of completing the
partial tour (at least) 10
Lower bound on the cost of Sum
completing the partial tour:

Example:

TSP sol.

11
Approximation
for TSP Assume complete graph and that the distances (edge length)
satisfy triangle inequality.
If we remove an edge from the TSP solution, it will
be a spanning tree!

We cannot go through the same node (city) twice


Lets consider MST and drop the requirement that we cannot visit the same city twice.
So we can traverse through the MST edges at most twice to visit all places and return.
So cost is at most 2 times that of MST or at most 2 times the optimal TSP cost.
When 𝑂𝑂𝑂𝑂𝑂𝑂. 𝑇𝑇𝑇𝑇𝑇𝑇 𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐 = 𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀 𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐
Now invoking the ‘no 2 visit’ clause, traversing directly from one place to
another without going through the MST edges twice can only reduce cost by
triangular inequality! Remove duplicate visits by direct path! Polynomial time! 12

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