arXiv subjects

Frank de Meijer

Publications and source records attributed to Frank de Meijer.

10 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Beyond binarity: Semidefinite programming for ternary quadratic problems

We study the ternary quadratic problem (TQP), a quadratic optimization problem with linear constraints where the variables take values in $\{0, \pm 1\}$. While semidefinite programming (SDP) techniques are well established for $\{0,1\}$- and $\{\pm 1\}$-valued quadratic problems, no dedicated integer semidefinite programming framework exists for the ternary case. In this paper, we introduce a ternary SDP formulation for the TQP that forms the basis of an exact solution approach. We derive new theoretical insights in rank-one ternary positive semidefinite matrices, which lead to a basic SDP relaxation that is further strengthened by valid triangle, RLT, split and $k$-gonal inequalities. These are embedded in a tailored branch-and-bound algorithm that iteratively solves strengthened SDPs, separates violated inequalities, applies a ternary branching strategy and computes high-quality feasible solutions. We test our algorithm on TQP variations motivated by practice, including unconstrained, linearly constrained and quadratic ratio problems. Computational results on these instances demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.

math.OC↗

arXiv2025

Spanning and Splitting: Integer Semidefinite Programming for the Quadratic Minimum Spanning Tree Problem

In the quadratic minimum spanning tree problem (QMSTP) one wants to find the minimizer of a quadratic function over all possible spanning trees of a graph. We present a formulation of the QMSTP as a mixed-integer semidefinite program exploiting the algebraic connectivity of a graph. Based on this formulation, we derive a doubly nonnegative relaxation for the QMSTP and investigate classes of valid inequalities to strengthen the relaxation using the Chvátal-Gomory procedure for mixed-integer conic programming. Solving the resulting relaxations is out of reach for off-the-shelf software. We therefore develop and implement a version of the Peaceman-Rachford splitting method that allows to compute the new bounds for graphs from the literature. The computational results demonstrate that our bounds significantly improve over existing bounds from the literature in both quality and computation time, in particular for graphs with more than 30 vertices. This work is further evidence that semidefinite programming is a valuable tool to obtain high-quality bounds for problems in combinatorial optimization, in particular for those that can be modelled as a quadratic problem.

math.OC↗

arXiv2025

Exploiting Symmetries in Optimal Quantum Circuit Design

A physical limitation in quantum circuit design is the fact that gates in a quantum system can only act on qubits that are physically adjacent in the architecture. To overcome this problem, SWAP gates need to be inserted to make the circuit physically realizable. The nearest neighbour compliance problem (NNCP) asks for an optimal embedding of qubits in a given architecture such that the total number of SWAP gates to be inserted is minimized. In this paper we study the NNCP on general quantum architectures. Building upon an existing linear programming formulation, we show how the model can be reduced by exploiting the symmetries of the graph underlying the formulation. The resulting model is equivalent to a generalized network flow problem and follows from an in-depth analysis of the automorphism group of specific Cayley graphs. As a byproduct of our approach, we show that the NNCP is polynomial time solvable for several classes of symmetric quantum architectures. Numerical tests on various architectures indicate that the reduction in the number of variables and constraints is on average at least 90%. In particular, NNCP instances on the star architecture can be solved for quantum circuits up to 100 qubits and more than 1000 quantum gates within a very short computation time. These results are far beyond the computational capacity when solving the instances without the exploitation of symmetries.

math.OC↗

arXiv2025

Lagrangian Duality for Mixed-Integer Semidefinite Programming: Theory and Algorithms

This paper presents the Lagrangian duality theory for mixed-integer semidefinite programming (MISDP). We derive the Lagrangian dual problem and prove that the resulting Lagrangian dual bound dominates the bound obtained from the continuous relaxation of the MISDP problem. We present a hierarchy of Lagrangian dual bounds by exploiting the theory of integer positive semidefinite matrices and propose three algorithms for obtaining those bounds. Our algorithms are variants of well-known algorithms for minimizing non-differentiable convex functions. The numerical results on the max-$k$-cut problem show that the Lagrangian dual bounds are substantially stronger than the semidefinite programming bound obtained by relaxing integrality, already for lower levels in the hierarchy.

math.OC↗

arXiv2024

Automorphism groups of Cayley graphs generated by general transposition sets

In this paper we study the Cayley graph $\mathrm{Cay}(S_n,T)$ of the symmetric group $S_n$ generated by a set of transpositions $T$. We show that for $n\geq 5$ the Cayley graph is normal. As a corollary, we show that its automorphism group is a direct product of $S_n$ and the automorphism group of the transposition graph associated to $T$. This provides an affirmative answer to a conjecture raised by Ganesan in arXiv:1703.08109, showing that $\mathrm{Cay}(S_n,T)$ is normal if and only if the transposition graph is not $C_4$ or $K_n$.

math.CO↗

arXiv2023

On Integrality in Semidefinite Programming for Discrete Optimization

It is well-known that by adding integrality constraints to the semidefinite programming (SDP) relaxation of the max-cut problem, the resulting integer semidefinite program is an exact formulation of the problem. In this paper we show similar results for a wide variety of discrete optimization problems for which SDP relaxations have been derived. Based on a comprehensive study on discrete positive semidefinite matrices, we introduce a generic approach to derive mixed-integer semidefinite programming (MISDP) formulations of binary quadratically constrained quadratic programs and binary quadratic matrix programs. Applying a problem-specific approach, we derive more compact MISDP formulations of several problems, such as the quadratic assignment problem, the graph partition problem and the integer matrix completion problem. We also show that several structured problems allow for novel compact MISDP formulations through the notion of association schemes. Complementary to the recent advances on algorithmic aspects related to MISDP, this work opens new perspectives on solution approaches for the here considered problems.

math.OC↗

arXiv2023

The Chvátal-Gomory Procedure for Integer SDPs with Applications in Combinatorial Optimization

In this paper we study the well-known Chvátal-Gomory (CG) procedure for the class of integer semidefinite programs (ISDPs). We prove several results regarding the hierarchy of relaxations obtained by iterating this procedure. We also study different formulations of the elementary closure of spectrahedra. A polyhedral description of the elementary closure for a specific type of spectrahedra is derived by exploiting total dual integrality for SDPs. Moreover, we show how to exploit (strengthened) CG cuts in a branch-and-cut framework for ISDPs. Different from existing algorithms in the literature, the separation routine in our approach exploits both the semidefinite and the integrality constraints. We provide separation routines for several common classes of binary SDPs resulting from combinatorial optimization problems. In the second part of the paper we present a comprehensive application of our approach to the quadratic traveling salesman problem (QTSP). Based on the algebraic connectivity of the directed Hamiltonian cycle, two ISDPs that model the QTSP are introduced. We show that the CG cuts resulting from these formulations contain several well-known families of cutting planes. Numerical results illustrate the practical strength of the CG cuts in our branch-and-cut algorithm, which outperforms alternative ISDP solvers and is able to solve large QTSP instances to optimality.

math.OC↗

arXiv2022

Partitioning through projections: strong SDP bounds for large graph partition problems

The graph partition problem (GPP) aims at clustering the vertex set of a graph into a fixed number of disjoint subsets of given sizes such that the sum of weights of edges joining different sets is minimized. This paper investigates the quality of doubly nonnegative (DNN) relaxations, i.e., relaxations having matrix variables that are both positive semidefinite and nonnegative, strengthened by additional polyhedral cuts for two variations of the GPP: the $k$-equipartition and the graph bisection problem. After reducing the size of the relaxations by facial reduction, we solve them by a cutting-plane algorithm that combines an augmented Lagrangian method with Dykstra's projection algorithm. Since many components of our algorithm are general, the algorithm is suitable for solving various DNN relaxations with a large number of cutting planes. We are the first to show the power of DNN relaxations with additional cutting planes for the GPP on large benchmark instances up to 1,024 vertices. Computational results show impressive improvements in strengthened DNN bounds.

math.OC↗

arXiv2021

SDP-based bounds for the Quadratic Cycle Cover Problem via cutting plane augmented Lagrangian methods and reinforcement learning

We study the Quadratic Cycle Cover Problem (QCCP), which aims to find a node-disjoint cycle cover in a directed graph with minimum interaction cost between successive arcs. We derive several semidefinite programming (SDP) relaxations and use facial reduction to make these strictly feasible. We investigate a nontrivial relationship between the transformation matrix used in the reduction and the structure of the graph, which is exploited in an efficient algorithm that constructs this matrix for any instance of the problem. To solve our relaxations, we propose an algorithm that incorporates an augmented Lagrangian method into a cutting plane framework by utilizing Dykstra's projection algorithm. Our algorithm is suitable for solving SDP relaxations with a large number of cutting planes. Computational results show that our SDP bounds and our efficient cutting plane algorithm outperform other QCCP bounding approaches from the literature. Finally, we provide several SDP-based upper bounding techniques, among which a sequential Q-learning method that exploits a solution of our SDP relaxation within a reinforcement learning environment.

math.OC↗

arXiv2019

The Quadratic Cycle Cover Problem: special cases and efficient bounds

The quadratic cycle cover problem is the problem of finding a set of node-disjoint cycles visiting all the nodes such that the total sum of interaction costs between consecutive arcs is minimized. In this paper we study the linearization problem for the quadratic cycle cover problem and related lower bounds. In particular, we derive various sufficient conditions for the quadratic cost matrix to be linearizable, and use these conditions to compute bounds. We also show how to use a sufficient condition for linearizability within an iterative bounding procedure. In each step, our algorithm computes the best equivalent representation of the quadratic cost matrix and its optimal linearizable matrix with respect to the given sufficient condition for linearizability. Further, we show that the classical Gilmore-Lawler type bound belongs to the family of linearization based bounds, and therefore apply the above mentioned iterative reformulation technique. We also prove that the linearization vectors resulting from this iterative approach satisfy the constant value property. The best among here introduced bounds outperform existing lower bounds when taking both quality and efficiency into account.

math.OC↗