Skip to main content

Using Constraint Programming to Solve the Maximum Clique Problem

  • Conference paper
Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming – CP 2003 (CP 2003)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 2833))

Abstract

This paper aims to show that Constraint Programming can be an efficient technique to solve a well-known combinatorial optimization problem: the search for a maximum clique in a graph. A clique of a graph G=(X,E) is a subset V of X, such that every two nodes in V are joined by an edge of E. The maximum clique problem consists of finding ω(G) the largest cardinality of a clique. We propose two new upper bounds of ω(G) and a new strategy to guide the search for an optimal solution. The interest of our approach is emphasized by the results we obtain for the DIMACS Benchmarks. Seven instances are solved for the first time and two better lower bounds for problems remaining open are found. Moreover, we show that the CP method we propose gives good results and quickly.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Balas, E., Niehaus, W.: Finding large cliques in arbitrary graphs by bipartite matching. In: Johnson, D., Trick, M. (eds.) DIMACS Series in Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science, vol. 26, pp. 29–52. American Mathematical Society, Providence (1996)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Berge, C.: Graphe et Hypergraphes. Dunod, Paris (1970)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Bomze, I., Budinich, M., Pardalos, P., Pelillo, M.: The maximum clique problem. Handbook of Combinatorial Optimization  4 (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Bron, C., Kerbosh, J.: Algorithm 457: Finding all cliques of an undirected graph. Communications of the ACM 16(9), 575–577 (1973)

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  5. Busygin, S.: A new trust region technique for the maximum weight clique problem. Submitted to Special Issue of Discrete Applied Mathematics: Combinatorial Optimization (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Dimacs. Dimacs clique benchmark instances (1993), ftp://dimacs.rutgers.edu/pub/challenge/graph/benchmarks/clique

  7. Fahle, T.: Simple and fast: Improving a branch-and-bound algorithm for maximum clique. In: Möhring, R.H., Raman, R. (eds.) ESA 2002. LNCS, vol. 2461, pp. 485–498. Springer, Heidelberg (2002)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  8. Homer, S., Peinado, M.: Experiements with polynomial-time clique approximation algorithms on very large graphs. In: Johnson, D., Trick, M. (eds.) DIMACS Series in Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science, vol. 26, pp. 147–168. American Mathematical Society, Providence (1996)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Östegard, P.: A fast algorithm for the maximum clique problem. Discrete Applied Mathematics (page to appear)

    Google Scholar 

  10. St-Louis, P., Gendron, B., Ferland, J.: A penalty-evaporation heuristic in a decomposition method for the maximum clique problem. In: Optimization Days, Montreal, Canada (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Wood, D.: An algorithm for finding maximum clique in a graph. Operations Research Letters 21, 211–217 (1997)

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2003 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Régin, JC. (2003). Using Constraint Programming to Solve the Maximum Clique Problem. In: Rossi, F. (eds) Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming – CP 2003. CP 2003. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 2833. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-45193-8_43

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-45193-8_43

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-20202-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-45193-8

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

Publish with us

Policies and ethics