Title: The Maximum Stable Set Problem: New Approaches via Continuous

In this talk, we will discuss a new nonlinear programming formulation of the maximum stable set problem --- a classical NP-Hard optimization problem in graph theory. This formulation is derived from the celebrated Lovasz theta semidefinite program and possesses some intriguing properties. We will explain how these properties can be exploited to construct nonlinear optimization heuristics for approximating the maximum stable set problem. We will then present computational results indicating the quality and efficiency of this new nonlinear programming approach.