Proximity results and faster algorithms for Integer Programming using the Steinitz Lemma

We consider integer programming problems in standard form $\max \{c^Tx : Ax = b, \, x\geq 0, \, x \in Z^n\}$ where $A \in Z^{m \times n}$, $b \in Z^m$ and $c \in Z^n$. We show that such an integer program can be solved in time $(m \Delta)^{O(m)} \cdot \|b\|_\infty^2$, where $\Delta$ is an upper bound on each absolute value of an entry in $A$. This improves upon the longstanding best bound of Papadimitriou (1981) of $(m\cdot \Delta)^{O(m^2)}$, where in addition, the absolute values of the entries of $b$ also need to be bounded by $\Delta$. Our result relies on a lemma of Steinitz that states that a set of vectors in $R^m$ that is contained in the unit ball of a norm and that sum up to zero can be ordered such that all partial sums are of norm bounded by $m$. We also use the Steinitz lemma to show that the $\ell_1$-distance of an optimal integer and fractional solution, also under the presence of upper bounds on the variables, is bounded by $m \cdot (2\,m \cdot \Delta+1)^m$. Here $\Delta$ is again an upper bound on the absolute values of the entries of $A$. The novel strength of our bound is that it is independent of $n$. We provide evidence for the significance of our bound by applying it to general knapsack problems where we obtain structural and algorithmic results that improve upon the recent literature.Comment: We achieve much milder dependence of the running time on the largest entry in $b

Knapsack with Small Items in Near-Quadratic Time

The Bounded Knapsack problem is one of the most fundamental NP-complete problems at the intersection of computer science, optimization, and operations research. A recent line of research worked towards understanding the complexity of pseudopolynomial-time algorithms for Bounded Knapsack parameterized by the maximum item weight $w_{\mathrm{max}}$ and the number of items $n$. A conditional lower bound rules out that Bounded Knapsack can be solved in time $O((n+w_{\mathrm{max}})^{2-\delta})$ for any $\delta > 0$ [Cygan, Mucha, Wegrzycki, Wlodarczyk'17, K\"unnemann, Paturi, Schneider'17]. This raised the question whether Bounded Knapsack can be solved in time $\tilde O((n+w_{\mathrm{max}})^2)$. The quest of resolving this question lead to algorithms that run in time $\tilde O(n^3 w_{\mathrm{max}}^2)$ [Tamir'09], $\tilde O(n^2 w_{\mathrm{max}}^2)$ and $\tilde O(n w_{\mathrm{max}}^3)$ [Bateni, Hajiaghayi, Seddighin, Stein'18], $O(n^2 w_{\mathrm{max}}^2)$ and $\tilde O(n w_{\mathrm{max}}^2)$ [Eisenbrand and Weismantel'18], $O(n + w_{\mathrm{max}}^3)$ [Polak, Rohwedder, Wegrzycki'21], and very recently $\tilde O(n + w_{\mathrm{max}}^{12/5})$ [Chen, Lian, Mao, Zhang'23]. In this paper we resolve this question by designing an algorithm for Bounded Knapsack with running time $\tilde O(n + w_{\mathrm{max}}^2)$, which is conditionally near-optimal.Comment: 28 page

Knapsack and Subset Sum with Small Items

Knapsack and Subset Sum are fundamental NP-hard problems in combinatorial optimization. Recently there has been a growing interest in understanding the best possible pseudopolynomial running times for these problems with respect to various parameters. In this paper we focus on the maximum item size s and the maximum item value v. We give algorithms that run in time O(n + s³) and O(n + v³) for the Knapsack problem, and in time Õ(n + s^{5/3}) for the Subset Sum problem. Our algorithms work for the more general problem variants with multiplicities, where each input item comes with a (binary encoded) multiplicity, which succinctly describes how many times the item appears in the instance. In these variants n denotes the (possibly much smaller) number of distinct items. Our results follow from combining and optimizing several diverse lines of research, notably proximity arguments for integer programming due to Eisenbrand and Weismantel (TALG 2019), fast structured (min,+)-convolution by Kellerer and Pferschy (J. Comb. Optim. 2004), and additive combinatorics methods originating from Galil and Margalit (SICOMP 1991)

Faster Algorithms for Bounded Knapsack and Bounded Subset Sum Via Fine-Grained Proximity Results

We investigate pseudopolynomial-time algorithms for Bounded Knapsack and Bounded Subset Sum. Recent years have seen a growing interest in settling their fine-grained complexity with respect to various parameters. For Bounded Knapsack, the number of items $n$ and the maximum item weight $w_{\max}$ are two of the most natural parameters that have been studied extensively in the literature. The previous best running time in terms of $n$ and $w_{\max}$ is $O(n + w^3_{\max})$ [Polak, Rohwedder, Wegrzycki '21]. There is a conditional lower bound of $O((n + w_{\max})^{2-o(1)})$ based on $(\min,+)$-convolution hypothesis [Cygan, Mucha, Wegrzycki, Wlodarczyk '17]. We narrow the gap significantly by proposing a $\tilde{O}(n + w^{12/5}_{\max})$-time algorithm. Note that in the regime where $w_{\max} \approx n$, our algorithm runs in $\tilde{O}(n^{12/5})$ time, while all the previous algorithms require $\Omega(n^3)$ time in the worst case. For Bounded Subset Sum, we give two algorithms running in $\tilde{O}(nw_{\max})$ and $\tilde{O}(n + w^{3/2}_{\max})$ time, respectively. These results match the currently best running time for 0-1 Subset Sum. Prior to our work, the best running times (in terms of $n$ and $w_{\max}$) for Bounded Subset Sum is $\tilde{O}(n + w^{5/3}_{\max})$ [Polak, Rohwedder, Wegrzycki '21] and $\tilde{O}(n + \mu_{\max}^{1/2}w_{\max}^{3/2})$ [implied by Bringmann '19 and Bringmann, Wellnitz '21], where $\mu_{\max}$ refers to the maximum multiplicity of item weights

Equal-Subset-Sum Faster Than the Meet-in-the-Middle

In the Equal-Subset-Sum problem, we are given a set S of n integers and the problem is to decide if there exist two disjoint nonempty subsets A,B subseteq S, whose elements sum up to the same value. The problem is NP-complete. The state-of-the-art algorithm runs in O^*(3^(n/2)) <= O^*(1.7321^n) time and is based on the meet-in-the-middle technique. In this paper, we improve upon this algorithm and give O^*(1.7088^n) worst case Monte Carlo algorithm. This answers a question suggested by Woeginger in his inspirational survey. Additionally, we analyse the polynomial space algorithm for Equal-Subset-Sum. A naive polynomial space algorithm for Equal-Subset-Sum runs in O^*(3^n) time. With read-only access to the exponentially many random bits, we show a randomized algorithm running in O^*(2.6817^n) time and polynomial space