A Randomized Algorithm for 3-SAT
Subhas Kumar Ghosh, Janardan Prasad Misra · 2009
In this work we propose and analyze a simple randomized algorithm to find a satisfiable assignment for a Boolean formula in conjunctive normal form (CNF) having at most 3 literals in every clause. Given a k-CNF formula φ on n variables, and α ∈ {0, 1} n that satisfies φ, a clause of φ is critical if exactly one literal of that clause is satisfied under assignment α. Paturi et. al. (Chicago Journal of Theoretical Computer Science 1999) proposed a simple randomized algorithm (PPZ) for k-SAT for which success probability increases with the number of critical clauses (with respect to a fixed satisfiable solution of the input formula). Here, we first describe another simple randomized algorithm DEL which performs better if the number of critical clauses are less (with respect to a fixed satisfiable solution of the input formula). Subsequently, we combine these two simple algorithms such that the success probability of the combined algorithm is maximum of the success probabilities of PPZ and DEL on every input instance. We show that when the average number of clauses per variable that appear as unique true literal in one or more critical clauses in φ is between 1 and 2/(3 · log (3/2)), combined algorithm performs better than the PPZ algorithm.