Exploiting Runtime Variation in Complete Solvers

Abstract

It has become well know over time that the performance of backtrack-style complete SAT solvers can vary dramatically depending on “little” details of the heuristics used, such as the way one selects the next variable to branch on and in what order the possible values are assigned to the variable. Extreme variations can result even from simple tie breaking mechanisms necessarily employed in all SAT solvers. The discovery of this extreme runtime variation has been both a stumbling block and an opportunity. This chapter focuses on providing an understanding of this intriguing phenomenon, particularly in terms of the so-called heavy tailed nature of the runtime distributions of systematic SAT solvers. It describes a simple formal model based on expensive mistakes to explain runtime distributions seen in practice, and discusses randomization and restart strategies that can be used to effectively overcome the negative impact of heavy tailed behavior. Finally, the chapter discusses the notion of backdoor variables, which explain the unexpectedly short runs one also often sees in practice.