Cut Polytope Research Articles

An Application of Combinatorial Optimization to Statistical Physics and Circuit Layout Design

We study the problem of finding ground states of spin glasses with exterior magnetic field, and the problem of minimizing the number of vias (holes on a printed circuit board, or contacts on a chip) subject to pin preassignments and layer preferences. The former problem comes up in solid-state physics, and the latter in very-large-scale-integrated (VLSI) circuit design and in printed circuit board design. Both problems can be reduced to the max-cut problem in graphs. Based on a partial characterization of the cut polytope, we design a cutting plane algorithm and report on computational experience with it. Our method has been used to solve max-cut problems on graphs with up to 1,600 nodes.

On the cut polytope

The cut polytopeP C (G) of a graphG=(V, E) is the convex hull of the incidence vectors of all edge sets of cuts ofG. We show some classes of facet-defining inequalities ofP C (G). We describe three methods with which new facet-defining inequalities ofP C (G) can be constructed from known ones. In particular, we show that inequalities associated with chordless cycles define facets of this polytope; moreover, for these inequalities a polynomial algorithm to solve the separation problem is presented. We characterize the facet defining inequalities ofP C (G) ifG is not contractible toK 5. We give a simple characterization of adjacency inP C (G) and prove that for complete graphs this polytope has diameter one and thatP C (G) has the Hirsch property. A relationship betweenP C (G) and the convex hull of incidence vectors of balancing edge sets of a signed graph is studied.