An Unconstrained Quadratic Binary Programming Approach to the Vertex Coloring Problem

The vertex coloring problem has been the subject of extensive research for many years. Driven by application potential as well as computational challenge, a variety of methods have been proposed for this difficult class of problems. Recent successes in the use of the unconstrained quadratic programming (UQP) model as a unified framework for modeling and solving combinatorial optimization problems have motivated a new approach to the vertex coloring problem. In this paper we present a UQP approach to this problem and illustrate its attractiveness with preliminary computational experience.