Combinatorial Optimization

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33 papers in the last four weeks, up 83% on the four weeks before. 0.3% of all new papers.

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Implicit Binarization via Complex Phase Dynamics in Combinatorial Optimization
May 23, 2026Khen Cohen, Mark Glass, Meir Feder +1Combinatorial Optimization Quadratic Unconstrained Binary Optimization
School of Physics and Astronomy, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel · School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel
Solving the Aircraft Disassembly Scheduling Problem
May 22, 2026Charles Thomas, Pierre SchausCombinatorial Optimization
Institute of Information and Communication Technologies, Electronics and Applied Mathematics (ICTEAM), UCLouvain, Place Sainte Barbe 2/L5.02.01, Louvain-la-Neuve, 1348, Belgium.
CP or DP? Why Not Both: A Case Study in the Partial Shop Scheduling Problem
May 22, 2026Emma Legrand, Roger Kameugne, Pierre SchausDynamic Programming Combinatorial Optimization
ICTEAM, UCLouvain, Belgium
Accelerating ground state search of spatial photonic Ising machines with genetic-simulated annealing hybrid algorithm
May 22, 2026Ze Zheng, Ruhui Ni, Jingyi Zhao +6Metaheuristic Optimization Combinatorial Optimization
Institute for Quantum Sensing and Information Processing, State Key Laboratory of Photonics and Communications, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China · 4Hefei National Laboratory, Hefei 230088, Anhui, China · Global College, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China +2
Learning-Augmented Online Scheduling with Parsimonious Preemption
May 22, 2026Mugen Blue, Sungjin Im, Alexander LindermayrCombinatorial Optimization Learning-Augmented Algorithms
University of California, Santa Cruz, US. · Institut für Mathematik, Technische Universität Berlin, Germany.
Deep Reinforcement Learning for Flexible Job Shop Scheduling with Random Job Arrivals
May 21, 2026Yu Tang, Muhammad Zakwan, Efe Balta +2Reinforcement Learning Combinatorial Optimization
Centre for Artificial Intelligence, Zurich University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland · Inspire AG, Zurich, Switzerland · Automatic Control Laboratory, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
From Sequential Nodes to GPU Batches: Parallel Branch and Bound for Optimal $k$ -Sparse GLMs
May 21, 2026Jiachang Liu, Andrea LodiBranch and Bound GPU Kernel Optimization
∗Center for Data Science for Enterprise and Society, Cornell University, Ithaca, USA · †School of Operations Research and Information Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, USA · ‡Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute, Cornell Tech and Technion–IIT, New York, USA
Exact Uniform L1 Spacing for Solow-Polasky Diversity on Lines and Ordered Pareto Fronts
May 21, 2026Michael T. M. Emmerich, Mahboubeh Nezhadmoghaddam, Jesús Guillermo Falcón CardonaCombinatorial Optimization Multi-Objective Optimization
Faculty of Information Technology School of Engineering and Sciences Computer Science Department University of Jyväskylä Jyväskylä, Finland · Tecnol´ogico de Monterrey Monterrey, M´exico · CICESE Research Center Ensenada, Baja California, M´exico
Beyond Single Slot: Joint Optimization for Multi-Slot Guaranteed Display Advertising
May 20, 2026Zhaoqi Zhang, Jiaming Deng, Miao Xie +5Online Advertising Combinatorial Optimization
Nanyang Technological University · Singapore, Singapore · Meituan +2
Privacy-Preserving Distributed Optimization Under Time Constraints Using Secure Multi-Party Computation and Evolutionary Algorithms
May 20, 2026Sebastian Gruber, Tobias Harzfeld, Christoph G. Schuetz +2Secure Multi-Party Computation Distributed Optimization
Johannes Kepler University Linz, Linz, Austria · AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, Vienna, Austria
Towards Distillation Guarantees under Algorithmic Alignment for Combinatorial Optimization
May 19, 2026Thien Le, Melanie WeberDynamic Programming Combinatorial Optimization
SEAS, Harvard University · Cambridge, MA
Projecting Latent RL Actions: Towards Generalizable and Scalable Graph Combinatorial Optimization
May 19, 2026Franco Terranova, Guillermo Bernardez, Albert Cabellos-Aparicio +2Latent Action Learning Combinatorial Optimization
UL, LORIA, Inria · Université de Lorraine, CNRS, Inria, LORIA · UC Santa Barbara +4
Transforming Constraint Programs to Input for Local Search
May 19, 2026Jo Devriendt, Patrick De Causmaecker, Marc DeneckerCombinatorial Optimization Local Search
University of Leuven
Heterogeneous Tasks Offloading in Vehicular Edge Computing: A Federated Meta Deep Reinforcement Learning Approach
May 18, 2026Yaorong Huang, Jingtao Luo, Xuechao WangFederated RL Edge Computing
∗The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou) · †Chengdu Neusoft University
Beyond Inference-Time Search: Reinforcement Learning Synthesizes Reusable Solvers
May 18, 2026Soheyl Massoudi, Gabriel Apaza, Milad Habibi +1RL for Code Generation LLM-Based Program Synthesis
ETH Zürich Zürich, Switzerland · University of Maryland College Park, MD, USA
Memory-Guided Tree Search with Cross-Branch Knowledge Transfer for LLM Solver Synthesis
May 17, 2026Fatemeh Haji, Javier Delarosa Quiros, Peyman NajafiradTree Search Large Language Model-Guided Optimization
Secure AI and Autonomy Lab · The University of Texas at San Antonio
Learning Multi-Timescale Abstractions for Hierarchical Combinatorial Planning
May 16, 2026Vivienne Huiling Wang, Tinghuai Wang, Joni PajarinenWorld Model-Based Planning Hierarchical RL
Department of Electrical Engineering and Automation, Aalto University, Finland · Qutwo, Finland
Learning Unbiased Permutations via Flow Matching
May 16, 2026Yimeng Min, Carla P. GomesFlow Matching Combinatorial Optimization
Department of Computer Science Cornell University Ithaca, NY, USA
Petri Net Induced Heuristic Search for Resource Constrained Scheduling
May 15, 2026Ido Lublin, Dor Atzmon, Izack CohenCombinatorial Optimization
Faculty of Engineering, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel
Optimizing Line Segment Inspection with Limited-Range Drones
May 15, 2026José-Miguel Díaz-Báñez, José-Manuel Higes, Alina Kasiuk +1Aerial Robotics Combinatorial Optimization
Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Seville, Spain
Combinatorial Optimization of Robotic Hand Kinematic Structures Using a Potential-Dexterity-Based QUBO Formulation
May 15, 2026HyoJae Kang, Yeong Jae Park, Jeongdo Ahn +1Robotic Hand Design Quantum Annealing
Advanced Robotics Research Center, Korea Institute of Machinery & Materials (KIMM) · Mechanical Engineering, University of Science & Technology (UST)
Scalable Solution of the Stochastic Multi-path Traveling Salesman Problem via Neural Networks
May 14, 2026Xiaochen Chou, Ludovica Di Marco, Enza MessinaNeural Surrogate Modeling Stochastic Optimization
Department of Informatics, Systems and Communication, University of Milano-Bicocca, Viale Sarca 336, Milan, 20125, Italy.
Distribution-Aware Programming: Learning Specialized Solvers from Experience
May 13, 2026Saharsh Koganti, Priyadarsi Mishra, Pierfrancesco Beneventano +1Large Language Model-Guided Optimization LLM-Based Program Synthesis
Texas A&M University · Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Polyhedral Instability Governs Regret in Online Learning
May 13, 2026Yuetai Li, Fengqing Jiang, Yichen Feng +6Online Convex Optimization Combinatorial Optimization
♣University of Washington · ♢Western Washington University · ♠King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology ♡HUMAIN
Graph Neural Networks with Triangle-Based Messages for the Multicut Problem
May 13, 2026Jannik Irmai, Lucas Fabian Naumann, Bjoern AndresGraph Neural Networks Combinatorial Optimization
Faculty of Computer Science, TU Dresden · Center for Scalable Data Analytics and AI, Dresden/Leipzig
CO-MAP: A Reinforcement Learning Approach to the Qubit Allocation Problem
May 13, 2026Ankit Kulshrestha, Xiaoyuan LiuQuantum Circuit Compilation Combinatorial Optimization
Fujitsu Research of America · Santa Clara, CA - 95054
Fast and Compact Graph Cuts for the Boykov-Kolmogorov Algorithm
May 13, 2026Christian Møller Mikkelstrup, Anders Bjorholm Dahl, Philip Bille +2Combinatorial Optimization
DTU Compute, Technical University of Denmark, 2800 Kongens Lyngby, Denmark
Quantum End-to-End Learning for Contextual Combinatorial Optimization
May 13, 2026Jaehwan Lee, Changhyun KwonCombinatorial Optimization Hybrid Quantum-Classical ML
1KAIST · 2Omelet
Time and Supply Fairness in Electricity Distribution using $k$ -times bin packing
May 12, 2026Dinesh Kumar Baghel, Alex Ravsky, Erel Segal-HaleviFair Resource Allocation Combinatorial Optimization
Ariel University, Ariel 40700, Israel · UPES, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India · Pidstryhach Institute for Applied Problems of Mechanics and Mathematics of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Lviv, Ukraine
TriVAL: A Tri-Validation Framework for Faithful Automatic Optimization Modeling
May 12, 2026Ziyang Fang, JinXi Wang, Jinghui Zhong +1Large Language Model-Guided Optimization Combinatorial Optimization
School of Computer Science and Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510000, China · Centre for Frontier AI Research, Agency for Science, Technology and Research, Singapore 138632 · College of Computing and Data Science, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 639798

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Implicit Binarization via Complex Phase Dynamics in Combinatorial Optimization

Khen Cohen, Mark Glass, Meir Feder, Yaron Oz

School of Physics and Astronomy, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel · School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

Combinatorial Optimization Quadratic Unconstrained Binary Optimization Sparse Coding Implicit Regularization

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We introduce a physics-inspired continuous relaxation framework that yields substantially improved solutions for NP-hard combinatorial optimization problems, including Quadratic Unconstrained Binary Optimization (QUBO), binary sparse coding, and planted-solution Ising models. By parameterizing discrete binary variables as continuous wave-like states on the complex unit circle, we inherently smooth highly non-convex energy landscapes. We show that representing binary variables as complex phases reveals an implicit regularization mechanism that promotes convergence toward discrete states. Extracting this mechanism yields significant improvements even within standard real-valued optimization frameworks, using this regularizer explicitly. Empirically, this regularization yields vastly higher ground-state convergence rates than standard real-valued alternatives. Our models achieved zero error in large-scale 160x160 QUBO tasks under severe noise (sigma=0.25), and outperformed traditional algorithms (OMP and LASSO) in underdefined sparse coding with perfect recovery at sigma=0.15. The solver's robustness was further validated by recovering exact ground-state configurations in 8 out of 11 rigorously engineered planted-solution benchmarks.

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