Towards a Hybrid Quantum Enhanced Solution for Densest k-Subgraph Problem

Abstract

We study the application of Gaussian Boson Sampling (GBS) to the densest k-subgraph problem (DkSP). GBS with hard post-selection suffers from poor sampling efficiency due to strict cardinality constraints. To address this limitation, we introduce effective classical post-processing strategies that transform, otherwise discarded, near-k samples into feasible solutions. A comprehensive set of simulations is carried out, demonstrating that these approaches achieve near-optimal solution quality while improving sampling efficiency by approximately 4X compared to post-selection on community-structured graphs, and also post-selection often fails to reach the optimal solution on sparse random graphs even with large number of samples. Furthermore, the proposed methods perform on par with, and in some cases outperform, established classical approaches for graphs up to moderate size. Overall, the results indicate that while GBS with post-selection alone is insufficient, its combination with lightweight classical refinement can be highly effective. This underscores the potential of hybrid quantum-classical frameworks and positions GBS as a promising sampling primitive for combinatorial graph optimization.