Minimizing energy below the glass thresholds.

Focusing on the optimization version of the random K -satisfiability problem, the MAX- K -SAT problem, we study the performance of the finite energy version of the survey propagation algorithm. We show that a simple (linear time) backtrack decimation strategy is sufficient to reach configurations well below the lower bound for the dynamic threshold energy and very close to the analytic prediction for the optimal ground states. A comparative numerical study on one of the most efficient local search procedures is also given.