The Runtime of the Compact Genetic Algorithm on Jump Functions

In the first and so far only mathematical runtime analysis of an estimation-of-distribution algorithm (EDA) on a multimodal problem, Hasenöhrl and Sutton (GECCO 2018) showed for any $k = o(n)$ that the compact genetic algorithm (cGA) with any hypothetical population size $μ= Ω(ne^{4k} + n^{3.5+\varepsilon})$ with high probability finds the optimum of the $n$-dimensional jump function with jump size $k$ in time $O(μn^{1.5} \log n)$. We significantly improve this result for small jump sizes $k \le \frac 1 {20} \ln n -1$. In this case, already for $μ= Ω(\sqrt n \log n) \cap \text{poly}(n)$ the runtime of the cGA with high probability is only $O(μ\sqrt n)$. For the smallest admissible values of $μ$, our result gives a runtime of $O(n \log n)$, whereas the previous one only shows $O(n^{5+\varepsilon})$. Since it is known that the cGA with high probability needs at least $Ω(μ\sqrt n)$ iterations to optimize the unimodal OneMx function, our result shows that the cGA in contrast to most classic evolutionary algorithms here is able to cross moderate-sized valleys of low fitness at no extra cost. For large $k$, we show that the exponential (in $k$) runtime guarantee of Hasenöhrl and Sutton is tight and cannot be improved, also not by using a smaller hypothetical population size. We prove that any choice of the hypothetical population size leads to a runtime that, with high probability, is at least exponential in the jump size $k$. This result might be the first non-trivial exponential lower bound for EDAs that holds for arbitrary parameter settings.