Exact semidefinite programming bounds for packing problems

In this paper we give an algorithm to round the floating point output of a semidefinite programming solver to a solution over the rationals or a quadratic extension of the rationals. We apply this to get sharp bounds for packing problems, and we use these sharp bounds to prove that certain optimal packing configurations are … Read more

Combinatorial Optimization Problems in Engineering Applications

This paper deals with several combinatorial optimization problems. The most challenging such problem is the quadratic assignment problem. It is considered in both two dimensions (QAP) and in three dimensions (Q3AP) and in the context of communication engineering. Semidefinite relaxations are used to derive lower bounds for the optimum while heuristics are applied to either … Read more

Upper bounds for packings of spheres of several radii

We give theorems that can be used to upper bound the densities of packings of different spherical caps in the unit sphere and of translates of different convex bodies in Euclidean space. These theorems extend the linear programming bounds for packings of spherical caps and of convex bodies through the use of semidefinite programming. We … Read more

Lower Bounds for Measurable Chromatic Numbers

The Lov\’asz theta function provides a lower bound for the chromatic number of finite graphs based on the solution of a semidefinite program. In this paper we generalize it so that it gives a lower bound for the measurable chromatic number of distance graphs on compact metric spaces. In particular we consider distance graphs on … Read more

Optimality and uniqueness of the (4,10,1/6) spherical code

Traditionally, optimality and uniqueness of an (n,N,t) spherical code is proved using linear programming bounds. However, this approach does not apply to the parameter (4,10,1/6). We use semidefinite programming bounds instead to show that the Petersen code (which are the vertices of the 4-dimensional second hypersimplex or the midpoints of the edges of the regular … Read more

New upper bounds for kissing numbers from semidefinite programming

Recently A. Schrijver derived new upper bounds for binary codes using semidefinite programming. In this paper we adapt this approach to codes on the unit sphere and we compute new upper bounds for the kissing number in several dimensions. In particular our computations give the (known) values for the cases n = 3, 4, 8, … Read more

The Thirteen Spheres: A New Proof

The “thirteen spheres problem”, also known as the “Gregory-Newton problem” is to determine the maximum number of three-dimensional spheres that can simultaneously touch a given sphere, where all the spheres have the same radius. The history of the problem goes back to a disagreement between Isaac Newton and David Gregory in 1694. Using a combination … Read more

Improved linear programming bounds for antipodal spherical codes

Let $S\subset[-1,1)$. A finite set $C=\{x_i\}_{i=1}^M\subset\Re^n$ is called a {\em spherical S-code} if $||x_i||=1$ for each $i$, and $x_i^T x_j\in S$, $i\ne j$. For $S=[-1,.5]$ maximizing $M=|C|$ is commonly referred to as the {\em kissing number} problem. A well-known technique based on harmonic analysis and linear programming can be used to bound $M$. We consider … Read more