Abstract
We show that, for any c>0, the (1+1) evolutionary algorithm using an arbitrary mutation rate p n =c/n finds the optimum of a linear objective function over bit strings of length n in expected time Θ(nlogn). Previously, this was only known for c≤1. Since previous work also shows that universal drift functions cannot exist for c larger than a certain constant, we instead define drift functions which depend crucially on the relevant objective functions (and also on c itself). Using these carefully-constructed drift functions, we prove that the expected optimisation time is Θ(nlogn). By giving an alternative proof of the multiplicative drift theorem, we also show that our optimisation-time bound holds with high probability.
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This work was begun while both authors were visiting the “Centre de Recerca Matemática de Catalunya”. It profited greatly from this ideal environment for collaboration.
A preliminary announcement of the result (without proofs) appeared in [3].
The work described in this paper was partly supported by EPSRC Research Grant (refs EP/I011528/1) “Computational Counting”.
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Doerr, B., Goldberg, L.A. Adaptive Drift Analysis. Algorithmica 65, 224–250 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00453-011-9585-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00453-011-9585-3