Bounds on Longest Simple Cycles in Weighted Directed Graphs via Optimum Cycle Means

arXiv:2601.00094v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: The problem of finding the longest simple cycle in a directed graph is NP-hard, with critical applications in computational biology, scheduling, and network analysis. While polynomial-time approximation algorithms exist for restricted graph classes, general bounds remain loose or computationally expensive. In this paper, we exploit optimum cycle means (minimum and maximum cycle means), which are computable in strongly polynomial time, to derive both strict algebraic bounds and heuristic approximations for the weight and length of the longest simple cycle. We rigorously analyze the algebraic relationships between these mean statistics and the properties of longest cycles, and present dual results for shortest cycles. While the strict bounds provide polynomial-time computable constraints suitable for pruning search spaces in branch-and-bound algorithms, our proposed heuristic approximations offer precise estimates for the objective value. Experimental evaluation on ISCAS benchmark circuits demonstrates this trade-off: while the strict algebraic lower bounds are often loose (median 85–93% below true values), the heuristic approximations achieve median errors of only 6–14%. We also observe that maximum weight and maximum length cycles frequently coincide, suggesting that long cycles tend to accumulate large weights.