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The traveling salesman problem: low-dimensionality implies a polynomial time approximation scheme

Published: 19 May 2012 Publication History

Abstract

The Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) is among the most famous NP-hard optimization problems. We design for this problem a randomized polynomial-time algorithm that computes a (1+µ)-approximation to the optimal tour, for any fixed µ>0, in TSP instances that form an arbitrary metric space with bounded intrinsic dimension.
The celebrated results of Arora [Aro98] and Mitchell [Mit99] prove that the above result holds in the special case of TSP in a fixed-dimensional Euclidean space. Thus, our algorithm demonstrates that the algorithmic tractability of metric TSP depends on the dimensionality of the space and not on its specific geometry. This result resolves a problem that has been open since the quasi-polynomial time algorithm of Talwar [Tal04].

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    cover image ACM Conferences
    STOC '12: Proceedings of the forty-fourth annual ACM symposium on Theory of computing
    May 2012
    1310 pages
    ISBN:9781450312455
    DOI:10.1145/2213977
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    Published: 19 May 2012

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    1. doubling metrics
    2. traveling salesman problem

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    May 19 - 22, 2012
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    • (2021)Fractal Dimension and Lower Bounds for Geometric ProblemsDiscrete & Computational Geometry10.1007/s00454-021-00282-8Online publication date: 28-May-2021
    • (2021)Travelling on Graphs with Small Highway DimensionAlgorithmica10.1007/s00453-020-00785-5Online publication date: 12-Feb-2021
    • (2020)On PTAS for the Geometric Maximum Connected k-Factor ProblemOptimization and Applications10.1007/978-3-030-38603-0_15(194-205)Online publication date: 8-Jan-2020
    • (2019)Travelling on Graphs with Small Highway DimensionGraph-Theoretic Concepts in Computer Science10.1007/978-3-030-30786-8_14(175-189)Online publication date: 12-Sep-2019
    • (2019)A Parallel Approach to Optimize the Supply Chain ManagementAdvanced Intelligent Systems for Sustainable Development (AI2SD’2018)10.1007/978-3-030-11881-5_12(129-146)Online publication date: 14-Feb-2019
    • (2018)A Method to Compute the Sparse Graphs for Traveling Salesman Problem Based on Frequency QuadrilateralsFrontiers in Algorithmics10.1007/978-3-319-78455-7_22(286-299)Online publication date: 21-Mar-2018
    • (2017)Parallel approach for genetic algorithm to solve the Asymmetric Traveling Salesman ProblemsProceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Computing and Wireless Communication Systems10.1145/3167486.3167510(1-6)Online publication date: 14-Nov-2017
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