5,825 research outputs found
(Almost) Ruling Out SETH Lower Bounds for All-Pairs Max-Flow
The All-Pairs Max-Flow problem has gained significant popularity in the last
two decades, and many results are known regarding its fine-grained complexity.
Despite this, wide gaps remain in our understanding of the time complexity for
several basic variants of the problem. In this paper, we aim to bridge this gap
by providing algorithms, conditional lower bounds, and non-reducibility
results. Our main result is that for most problem settings, deterministic
reductions based on the Strong Exponential Time Hypothesis (SETH) cannot rule
out time algorithms under a hypothesis called NSETH.
In particular, to obtain our result for the setting of undirected graphs with
unit node-capacities, we design a new randomized time
combinatorial algorithm, improving on the recent time
algorithm [Huang et al., STOC 2023] and matching their lower bound
(up to subpolynomial factors), thus essentially settling the time complexity
for this setting of the problem.
More generally, our main technical contribution is the insight that -cuts
can be verified quickly, and that in most settings, -flows can be shipped
succinctly (i.e., with respect to the flow support). This is a key idea in our
non-reducibility results, and it may be of independent interest
Near-Optimal Approximate Shortest Paths and Transshipment in Distributed and Streaming Models
We present a method for solving the transshipment problem - also known as
uncapacitated minimum cost flow - up to a multiplicative error of in undirected graphs with non-negative edge weights using a
tailored gradient descent algorithm. Using to hide
polylogarithmic factors in (the number of nodes in the graph), our gradient
descent algorithm takes iterations, and in each
iteration it solves an instance of the transshipment problem up to a
multiplicative error of . In particular, this allows
us to perform a single iteration by computing a solution on a sparse spanner of
logarithmic stretch. Using a randomized rounding scheme, we can further extend
the method to finding approximate solutions for the single-source shortest
paths (SSSP) problem. As a consequence, we improve upon prior work by obtaining
the following results: (1) Broadcast CONGEST model: -approximate SSSP using rounds, where is the (hop) diameter of the network.
(2) Broadcast congested clique model: -approximate
transshipment and SSSP using rounds. (3)
Multipass streaming model: -approximate transshipment and
SSSP using space and passes. The
previously fastest SSSP algorithms for these models leverage sparse hop sets.
We bypass the hop set construction; computing a spanner is sufficient with our
method. The above bounds assume non-negative edge weights that are polynomially
bounded in ; for general non-negative weights, running times scale with the
logarithm of the maximum ratio between non-zero weights.Comment: Accepted to SIAM Journal on Computing. Preliminary version in DISC
2017. Abstract shortened to fit arXiv's limitation to 1920 character
On the Hardness of Partially Dynamic Graph Problems and Connections to Diameter
Conditional lower bounds for dynamic graph problems has received a great deal
of attention in recent years. While many results are now known for the
fully-dynamic case and such bounds often imply worst-case bounds for the
partially dynamic setting, it seems much more difficult to prove amortized
bounds for incremental and decremental algorithms. In this paper we consider
partially dynamic versions of three classic problems in graph theory. Based on
popular conjectures we show that:
-- No algorithm with amortized update time exists for
incremental or decremental maximum cardinality bipartite matching. This
significantly improves on the bound for sparse graphs
of Henzinger et al. [STOC'15] and bound of Kopelowitz,
Pettie and Porat. Our linear bound also appears more natural. In addition, the
result we present separates the node-addition model from the edge insertion
model, as an algorithm with total update time exists for the
former by Bosek et al. [FOCS'14].
-- No algorithm with amortized update time exists for
incremental or decremental maximum flow in directed and weighted sparse graphs.
No such lower bound was known for partially dynamic maximum flow previously.
Furthermore no algorithm with amortized update time
exists for directed and unweighted graphs or undirected and weighted graphs.
-- No algorithm with amortized update time exists
for incremental or decremental -approximating the diameter
of an unweighted graph. We also show a slightly stronger bound if node
additions are allowed. [...]Comment: To appear at ICALP'16. Abstract truncated to fit arXiv limit
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