Finding a Hamilton cycle fast on average using rotations and extensions

Abstract

We present an algorithm CRE, which either finds a Hamilton cycle in a graph $G$ or determines that there is no such cycle in the graph. The algorithm's expected running time over input distribution $G\sim G(n,p)$ is $(1+o(1))n/p$, the optimal possible expected time, for $p=p(n) \geq 70n^{-\frac{1}{2}}$. This improves upon previous results on this problem due to Gurevich and Shelah, and to Thomason.