New Developments in Symmetry Breaking in Search Using Computational Group Theory

Symmetry-breaking in constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs) is a well-established area of AI research which has recently developed strong interactions with symbolic computation, in the form of computational group theory. GE-trees are a new conceptual abstraction, providing low-degree polynomial time methods for breaking value symmetries in CSPs. In this paper we analyse the structure of symmetry groups of CSPs, and implement several combinations of GE-trees and the classical SBDD method for breaking all symmetries. We prove the efficacy of our techniques, and present preliminary experimental evidence of their practical efficiency.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2004
• Where: AISC
• Authors: Tom Kelsey, Steve Linton, Colva M. Roney-Dougal
• Keywords: AISC 2004, Artificial Intelligence, Computational Group Theory, Constraint Satisfaction Problems, Low-degree Polynomial Time