A Lagrangian Bound on the Clique Number and an Exact Algorithm for the Maximum Edge Weight Clique Problem

This paper explores the connections between the classical maximum clique problem and its edge-weighted generalization, the maximum edge weight clique (MEWC) problem. As a result, a new analytic upper bound on the clique number of a graph is obtained and an exact algorithm for solving the MEWC problem is developed. The bound on the clique number is derived using a Lagrangian relaxation of an integer (linear) programming formulation of the MEWC problem. Furthermore, coloring-based bounds on the clique number are used in a novel upper-bounding scheme for the MEWC problem. This scheme is employed within a combinatorial branch-and-bound framework, yielding an exact algorithm for the MEWC problem. Results of computational experiments demonstrate a superior performance of the proposed algorithm compared with existing approaches.