Traveling Salesman Constants

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Let L(n,d) be the smallest tour length for n points in a d-D hypercube. Then there exists a smallest constant alpha(d) such that for all optimal tours in the hypercube,

 lim sup_(n->infty)(L(n,d))/(n^((d-1)/d)sqrt(d))<=alpha(d),
(1)

and a constant beta(d) such that for almost all optimal tours in the hypercube,

 lim_(n->infty)(L(n,d))/(n^((d-1)/d)sqrt(d))=beta(d).
(2)

These constants satisfy the inequalities

0.44194<gamma_2=5/(16)sqrt(2)<=beta(2)
(3)
<=delta<0.6508<0.75983<3^(-1/4)<=alpha(2)
(4)
<=phi<0.98398
(5)
0.37313<gamma_3<=beta(3)<=12^(1/6)6^(-1/2)<0.61772<0.64805
(6)
<2^(1/6)3^(-1/2)<=alpha(3)<=psi<0.90422
(7)
0.34207<gamma_4<=beta(4)<=12^(1/8)6^(-1/2)<0.55696
(8)
<0.59460<2^(-3/4)<=alpha(4)<=0.8364
(9)

(Fejes Tóth 1940, Verblunsky 1951, Few 1955, Beardwood et al. 1959), where

 gamma_d=(Gamma(3+1/d)[Gamma(1/2d+1)]^(1/d))/(2sqrt(pi)(d^(1/2)+d^(-1/2))),
(10)

Gamma(z) is the gamma function, delta is an expression involving Struve functions and Bessel functions of the second kind,

 phi=(280(3-sqrt(3)))/(840-280sqrt(3)+4sqrt(5)-sqrt(10))
(11)

(OEIS A086306; Karloff 1989), and

 psi=1/23^(-2/3)(4+3ln3)^(2/3)
(12)

(OEIS A086307; Goddyn 1990).

In the limit d->infty,

0.24197<lim_(d->infty)gamma_d=1/(sqrt(2pie))<=lim inf_(d->infty)beta(d)
(13)
<=lim sup_(d->infty)beta(d)<=lim_(d->infty)12^(1/(2d))6^(-1/2)
(14)
=1/(sqrt(6))<0.40825
(15)

and

 0.24197<1/(sqrt(2pie))<=lim_(d->infty)alpha(d)<=(2(3-sqrt(3))theta)/(sqrt(2pie))<0.4052,
(16)

where

 1/2<=theta=lim_(d->infty)[theta(d)]^(1/d)<=0.6602,
(17)

and theta(d) is the best sphere packing density in d-D space (Goddyn 1990, Moran 1984, Kabatyanskii and Levenshtein 1978). Steele and Snyder (1989) proved that the limit alpha(d) exists.

Now consider the constant

 kappa=lim_(n->infty)(L(n,2))/(sqrt(n))=beta(2)sqrt(2),
(18)

so

 5/8=gamma_2sqrt(2)<=kappa<=deltasqrt(2)<0.9204.
(19)

Nonrigorous numerical estimates give kappa approx 0.7124 (Johnson et al. 1996) and kappa approx 0.7120 (Percus and Martin 1996).

A certain self-avoiding space-filling function is an optimal tour through a set of n points, where n can be arbitrarily large. It has length

 lambda=lim_(m->infty)(L_m)/(sqrt(n_m))=(4(1+2sqrt(2))sqrt(51))/(153)=0.7147827...
(20)

(OEIS A073008), where L_m is the length of the curve at the mth iteration and n_m is the point-set size (Norman and Moscato 1995).

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