Complexity Analysis and Stochastic Convergence of Some Well-known Evolutionary Operators for Solving Graph Coloring Problem

Abstract

The graph coloring problem is an NP-hard combinatorial optimization problem and can be applied to various engineering applications. The chromatic number of a graph G is defined as the minimum number of colors required to color the vertex set V(G) so that no two adjacent vertices are of the same color, and different approximations and evolutionary methods can find it. The present paper focused on the asymptotic analysis of some well-known and recent evolutionary operators for finding the chromatic number. The asymptotic analysis of different crossover and mutation operators helps in choosing the better evolutionary operator to minimize the problem search space and computational complexity. The choice of the right genetic operators facilitates an evolutionary algorithm to achieve faster convergence with lesser population size N through an adequate distribution of promising genes. The selection of an evolutionary operator plays an essential role in reducing the bounds for minimum color obtained so far for some of the benchmark graphs. This research also focuses on the necessary and sufficient conditions for the global convergence of evolutionary algorithms. The stochastic convergence of recent evolutionary operators for solving graph coloring is newly analyzed.