Exact exponential algorithms and parameterized complexity指数算法和参数复杂性(Introduction to Algorithms, 算法导论

Exact exponential algorithms and parameterized complexity

We usually want algorithms that:

• in polynomial time;
• for all instances;
• find an exact solution;

We can settle for 2 out of 3:

• relax 1: exponential algorithm
• relax 2: parameterized
• relax 3: approximate solutions

1. Exact exponential algorithms

• the length of a certificate at most: $|y|\le m(x)$; $m(x)\in O(poly|x|)$
• every problem in NP has a simple brute-force algorithm:
  • Given a instance $x$, try all potential certificates $y$ with $|y|\le m(x)$ and check if $R(x,y)=1$ for any of them.
  • since $y\le m(x)$, there are at most $O(2^{m(x)})$ potential certificates, and it takes $O(poly|x|)$ time to check each certificate, so the brute force algorithm for a NP problem can run in $O(2^{m(x)}poly|x|)$.

2. Notation: $O^{\ast }(\cdot )$:

For any $a>1$, $\epsilon >0$, and any $c\in R$ , we have the running time for the simple brute-force algorithm $O^{\ast }(2^{m(x)})$.

Since: O ( n c ⋅ a n ) ⊂ O ( ( a + ε ) n