Tight Runtime Guarantees From Understanding the Population Dynamics of the GSEMO Multi-Objective Evolutionary Algorithm

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Doerr, Benjamin, Krejca, Martin, Opris, Andre
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866913816366809088
author Doerr, Benjamin
Krejca, Martin
Opris, Andre
author_facet Doerr, Benjamin
Krejca, Martin
Opris, Andre
contents The global simple evolutionary multi-objective optimizer (GSEMO) is a simple, yet often effective multi-objective evolutionary algorithm (MOEA). By only maintaining non-dominated solutions, it has a variable population size that automatically adjusts to the needs of the optimization process. The downside of the dynamic population size is that the population dynamics of this algorithm are harder to understand, resulting, e.g., in the fact that only sporadic tight runtime analyses exist. In this work, we significantly enhance our understanding of the dynamics of the GSEMO, in particular, for the classic CountingOnesCountingZeros (COCZ) benchmark. From this, we prove a lower bound of order $Ω(n^2 \log n)$, for the first time matching the seminal upper bounds known for over twenty years. We also show that the GSEMO finds any constant fraction of the Pareto front in time $O(n^2)$, improving over the previous estimate of $O(n^2 \log n)$ for the time to find the first Pareto optimum. Our methods extend to other classic benchmarks and yield, e.g., the first $Ω(n^{k+1})$ lower bound for the OJZJ benchmark in the case that the gap parameter is $k \in \{2,3\}$. We are therefore optimistic that our new methods will be useful in future mathematical analyses of MOEAs.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_01266
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Tight Runtime Guarantees From Understanding the Population Dynamics of the GSEMO Multi-Objective Evolutionary Algorithm
Doerr, Benjamin
Krejca, Martin
Opris, Andre
Neural and Evolutionary Computing
Primary: 68W50, Secondary: 68W20, 68W40
F.2.2; G.3
The global simple evolutionary multi-objective optimizer (GSEMO) is a simple, yet often effective multi-objective evolutionary algorithm (MOEA). By only maintaining non-dominated solutions, it has a variable population size that automatically adjusts to the needs of the optimization process. The downside of the dynamic population size is that the population dynamics of this algorithm are harder to understand, resulting, e.g., in the fact that only sporadic tight runtime analyses exist. In this work, we significantly enhance our understanding of the dynamics of the GSEMO, in particular, for the classic CountingOnesCountingZeros (COCZ) benchmark. From this, we prove a lower bound of order $Ω(n^2 \log n)$, for the first time matching the seminal upper bounds known for over twenty years. We also show that the GSEMO finds any constant fraction of the Pareto front in time $O(n^2)$, improving over the previous estimate of $O(n^2 \log n)$ for the time to find the first Pareto optimum. Our methods extend to other classic benchmarks and yield, e.g., the first $Ω(n^{k+1})$ lower bound for the OJZJ benchmark in the case that the gap parameter is $k \in \{2,3\}$. We are therefore optimistic that our new methods will be useful in future mathematical analyses of MOEAs.
title Tight Runtime Guarantees From Understanding the Population Dynamics of the GSEMO Multi-Objective Evolutionary Algorithm
topic Neural and Evolutionary Computing
Primary: 68W50, Secondary: 68W20, 68W40
F.2.2; G.3
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.01266