T-->0 mean-field population dynamics approach for the random 3-satisfiability problem

Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys. 2008 Jun;77(6 Pt 2):066102. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.77.066102. Epub 2008 Jun 5.

Abstract

During the past decade, phase-transition phenomena in the random 3-satisfiability ( 3 -SAT) problem has been intensively studied by statistical physics methods. In this work, we study the random 3 -SAT problem by the mean-field first-step replica-symmetry-broken cavity theory at the limit of temperature T-->0 . The reweighting parameter y of the cavity theory is allowed to approach infinity together with the inverse temperature beta with fixed ratio r=ybeta . Focusing on the system's space of satisfiable configurations, we carry out extensive population dynamics simulations using the technique of importance sampling, and we obtain the entropy density s(r) and complexity Sigma(r) of zero-energy clusters at different r values. We demonstrate that the population dynamics may reach different fixed points with different types of initial conditions. By knowing the trends of s(r) and Sigma(r) with r , we can judge whether a certain type of initial condition is appropriate at a given r value. This work complements and confirms the results of several other very recent theoretical studies.