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Optimizing over the subtour polytope of the travelling salesman problem

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Abstract

A commonly studied relaxation of the travelling salesman problem is obtained by adding subtour elimination constraints to the constraints of a 2-factor problem and removing the integrality requirement. We investigate the problem of solving this relaxation for a special type of objective function. We also discuss some ways in which this relates to the concept of rank introduced by Chvátal.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Ottawa, K1N 6N5, Ottawa, Ont., Canada

    S. C. Boyd

  2. Department of Combinatorics and Optimization, University of Waterloo, N2L 3G1, Waterloo, Ont., Canada

    W. R. Pulleyblank

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  1. S. C. Boyd
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  2. W. R. Pulleyblank
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Boyd, S.C., Pulleyblank, W.R. Optimizing over the subtour polytope of the travelling salesman problem. Mathematical Programming 49, 163–187 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01588786

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01588786

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