Improvement of Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm for Max–Cut Problems

The objective of this short letter is to study the optimal partitioning of value stream networks into two classes so that the number of connections between them is maximized. Such kind of problems are frequently found in the design of different systems such as communication network configuration, and industrial applications in which certain topological characteristics enhance value–stream network resilience. The main interest is to improve the Max–Cut algorithm proposed in the quantum approximate optimization approach (QAOA), looking to promote a more efficient implementation than those already published. A discussion regarding linked problems as well as further research questions are also reviewed.

Quantum Annealing versus Digital Computing

Quantum annealing is getting increasing attention in combinatorial optimization. The quantum processing unit by D-Wave is constructed to approximately solve Ising models on so-called Chimera graphs. Ising models are equivalent to quadratic unconstrained binary optimization (QUBO) problems and maximum cut problems on the associated graphs. We have tailored branch-and-cut as well as semidefinite programming algorithms for solving Ising models for Chimera graphs to provable optimality and use the strength of these approaches for comparing our solution values to those obtained on the current quantum annealing machine, D-Wave 2000Q. This allows for the assessment of the quality of solutions produced by the D-Wave hardware. In addition, we also evaluate the performance of a heuristic by Selby. It has been a matter of discussion in the literature how well the D-Wave hardware performs at its native task, and our experiments shed some more light on this issue. In particular, we examine how reliably the D-Wave computer can deliver true optimum solutions and present some surprising results.

An Efficient Riemannian Gradient based Algorithm for Max-Cut Problems

<p>The max-cut problem addresses the problem of finding a cut for a graph that splits the graph into two subsets of vertices so that the number of edges between these two subsets is as large as possible. However, this problem is NP-Hard, which may be solved by suboptimal algorithms. In this paper, we propose a fast and accurate Riemannian optimization algorithm for solving the max-cut problem. To do so, we develop a gradient descent algorithm and prove its convergence. Our simulation results show that the proposed method is extremely efficient on some already-investigated graphs. Specifically, our method is on average 50 times faster than the best well-known techniques with slightly losing the performance, which is on average 0.9729 of the max-cut value of the others.</p> <p></p>

An Efficient Riemannian Gradient based Algorithm for Max-Cut Problems

<p>The max-cut problem addresses the problem of finding a cut for a graph that splits the graph into two subsets of vertices so that the number of edges between these two subsets is as large as possible. However, this problem is NP-Hard, which may be solved by suboptimal algorithms. In this paper, we propose a fast and accurate Riemannian optimization algorithm for solving the max-cut problem. To do so, we develop a gradient descent algorithm and prove its convergence. Our simulation results show that the proposed method is extremely efficient on some already-investigated graphs. Specifically, our method is on average 50 times faster than the best well-known techniques with slightly losing the performance, which is on average 0.9729 of the max-cut value of the others.</p> <p></p>

A Deep Learning Algorithm for the Max-Cut Problem Based on Pointer Network Structure with Supervised Learning and Reinforcement Learning Strategies

The Max-cut problem is a well-known combinatorial optimization problem, which has many real-world applications. However, the problem has been proven to be non-deterministic polynomial-hard (NP-hard), which means that exact solution algorithms are not suitable for large-scale situations, as it is too time-consuming to obtain a solution. Therefore, designing heuristic algorithms is a promising but challenging direction to effectively solve large-scale Max-cut problems. For this reason, we propose a unique method which combines a pointer network and two deep learning strategies (supervised learning and reinforcement learning) in this paper, in order to address this challenge. A pointer network is a sequence-to-sequence deep neural network, which can extract data features in a purely data-driven way to discover the hidden laws behind data. Combining the characteristics of the Max-cut problem, we designed the input and output mechanisms of the pointer network model, and we used supervised learning and reinforcement learning to train the model to evaluate the model performance. Through experiments, we illustrated that our model can be well applied to solve large-scale Max-cut problems. Our experimental results also revealed that the new method will further encourage broader exploration of deep neural network for large-scale combinatorial optimization problems.