Polynomial iterative algorithms for coloring and analyzing random graphs
Alfredo Braunstein, Roberto Mulet, Andrea Pagnani, Martin Weigt, Riccardo Zecchina · Physical review. E, Statistical physics, plasmas, fluids, and related interdisciplinary topics · 2003
We study the graph coloring problem over random graphs of finite average connectivity c. Given a number q of available colors, we find that graphs with low connectivity admit almost always a proper coloring whereas graphs with high connectivity are uncolorable. Depending on q, we find with a one-step replica-symmetry breaking approximation the precise value of the critical average connectivity c(q). Moreover, we show that below c(q) there exists a clustering phase c in [c(d),c(q)] in which ground states spontaneously divide into an exponential number of clusters. Furthermore, we extended our considerations to the case of single instances showing consistent results. This leads us to propose a different algorithm that is able to color in polynomial time random graphs in the hard but colorable region, i.e., when c in [c(d),c(q)].