More on greedy construction heuristics for the MAX-CUT problem

Abstract

A cut of a graph can be represented in many different ways. Here we propose to represent a cut through a ``relation tree'', which is a spanning tree with signed edges. We show that this picture helps to classify the main greedy heuristics for the maximum cut problem, in analogy with the minimum spanning tree problem. Namely, all versions of the Sahni-Gonzalez~(SG) algorithms could be classified as the Prim class, while various Edge-Contraction~(EC) algorithms are of the Kruskal class. We further elucidate the relation of this framework to the stabilizer formalism in quantum computing, and point out that the recently proposed \textit{ADAPT-Clifford} algorithm is a reformulation of a refined version of the SG algorithm, SG3. Numerical performance of the typical algorithms from the two classes are studied with various kinds of graphs. It turns out that, the Prim-class algorithms perform better for general dense graphs, and the Kruskal-class algorithms performs better when the graphs are sparse enough.