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National Conference on Artificial Intelligence

Graph coloring with quantum heuristics

Alex Fabrikant, Tad Hogg

Published Jul 28, 2002• 9 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We present a quantum computer heuristic search algorithm for graph coloring. This algorithm uses a new quantum operator, appropriate for nonbinary-valued constraint satis-faction problems, and information available in partial col-orings. We evaluate the algorithm empirically with small graphs near a phase transition in search performance. It im-proves on two prior quantum algorithms: unstructured search and a heuristic applied to the satisfiability (SAT) encoding of graph coloring. An approximate asymptotic analysis sug-gests polynomial-time cost for hard graph coloring problems, on average.

DOI
10.5555/777092.777099

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Graph coloring is a well-known NP-complete problem with applications in scheduling, register allocation, frequency assignment, and network optimization. Quantum computing offers the potential for polynomial or even super-polynomial speedups in certain problem instances, yet practical quantum graph coloring methods must carefully balance qubit resources, circuit depth, and constraint enforcement. We proposed a solver agnostic quantum framework for KKK-coloring. Along with a novel encoding and efficient constraint implementation for its exact coloring exploiting Grover search and almost optimal coloring by the Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm \emph{(QAOA)}, and \emph{Quantum Annealing}. Unlike using O(NK)O(NK)O(NK) qubits as in \emph{SOTA}, we reduced the qubit requirements to O(Nlog⁡2K)O(N \log_2 K)O(Nlog2​K), along with optimized comparator circuits enforcing adjacency constraints. Further symmetry-based graph reduction is incorporated as an optional preprocessing step to further reduce the instance size before quantum execution.
Genetic algorithms (GA) are computational methods for solving optimization problems inspired by natural selection. Because we can simulate the quantum circuits that implement GA in different highly configurable noise models and even run GA on actual quantum computers, we can analyze this class of heuristic methods in the quantum context for NP-hard problems. This paper proposes an instantiation of the Reduced Quantum Genetic Algorithm (RQGA) that solves the NP-hard graph coloring problem in O(N 1/2 ). The proposed implementation solves both vertex and edge coloring and can also determine the chromatic number ( i.e ., the minimum number of colors required to color the graph). We examine the results, analyze the algorithm convergence, and measure the algorithm's performance using the Qiskit simulation environment. Our Reduced Quantum Genetic Algorithm (RQGA) circuit implementation and the graph coloring results show that quantum heuristics can tackle complex computational problems more efficiently than their conventional counterparts.
Quantum computing based Grover's algorithm performs unstructured search problems in unsorted data to structured data in validating bit string through graph coloring. The quantum Grover's algorithm and graph theory was looked at in graph coloring. In graph coloring algorithm can be leveraged to validate coloring assignments for graph with arbitrary structures. It's accuracy and efficiency has been achieved by the iteration of square root (N) By adapting Grover's search mechanism, we aim to optimize the process of finding valid coloring in a graph, which is a crucial NP-complete problem in classical computation. This algorithm determines shortest node to see if the gates can be colored rightly for detect validation bit string. To get a validated a significant advantage of the hybrid classical-quantum approach reduces time complexity and exhaustive search. Grover's algorithm reduces the number of iterations needed for a solution, providing a quantum advantage in efficiency.