  An undirected graph consists of a set of vertices and a set of undirected
edges between vertices. Such a graph may contain an abundant number of cycles,
then a feedback vertex set (FVS) is a set of vertices intersecting with each of
these cycles. Constructing a FVS of cardinality approaching the global minimum
value is a optimization problem in the nondeterministic polynomial-complete
complexity class, therefore it might be extremely difficult for some large
graph instances. In this paper we develop a simulated annealing local search
algorithm for the undirected FVS problem. By defining an order for the vertices
outside the FVS, we replace the global cycle constraints by a set of local
vertex constraints on this order. Under these local constraints the cardinality
of the focal FVS is then gradually reduced by the simulated annealing dynamical
process. We test this heuristic algorithm on large instances of Er\"odos-Renyi
random graph and regular random graph, and find that this algorithm is
comparable in performance to the belief propagation-guided decimation
algorithm.
