Travelling Salesman Problem with a Center

Abstract

We study a travelling salesman problem where the path is optimized with a cost function that includes its length $L$ as well as a certain measure $C$ of its distance from the geometrical center of the graph. Using simulated annealing (SA) we show that such a problem has a transition point that separates two phases differing in the scaling behaviour of $L$ and $C$, in efficiency of SA, and in the shape of minimal paths.

4 pages, minor changes, accepted in Phys.Rev.E