Finding Maximum Cliques in Large Networks

Abstract: There are many methods to find a maximum (or maximal) clique in large networks. Due to the nature of combinatorics, computation becomes exponentially expensive as the number of vertices in a graph increases. Thus, there is a need for efficient algorithms to find a maximum clique. In this paper, we present a graph reduction method that significantly reduces the order of a graph, and so enables the identification of a maximum clique in graphs of large order, that would otherwise be computational infeasible to find the maximum. We find bounds of the maximum (or maximal) clique using this reduction. We demonstrate our method on real-life social networks and also on Erd\"{o}s-Renyi random graphs.