103,250 research outputs found
Independent Set, Induced Matching, and Pricing: Connections and Tight (Subexponential Time) Approximation Hardnesses
We present a series of almost settled inapproximability results for three
fundamental problems. The first in our series is the subexponential-time
inapproximability of the maximum independent set problem, a question studied in
the area of parameterized complexity. The second is the hardness of
approximating the maximum induced matching problem on bounded-degree bipartite
graphs. The last in our series is the tight hardness of approximating the
k-hypergraph pricing problem, a fundamental problem arising from the area of
algorithmic game theory. In particular, assuming the Exponential Time
Hypothesis, our two main results are:
- For any r larger than some constant, any r-approximation algorithm for the
maximum independent set problem must run in at least
2^{n^{1-\epsilon}/r^{1+\epsilon}} time. This nearly matches the upper bound of
2^{n/r} (Cygan et al., 2008). It also improves some hardness results in the
domain of parameterized complexity (e.g., Escoffier et al., 2012 and Chitnis et
al., 2013)
- For any k larger than some constant, there is no polynomial time min
(k^{1-\epsilon}, n^{1/2-\epsilon})-approximation algorithm for the k-hypergraph
pricing problem, where n is the number of vertices in an input graph. This
almost matches the upper bound of min (O(k), \tilde O(\sqrt{n})) (by Balcan and
Blum, 2007 and an algorithm in this paper).
We note an interesting fact that, in contrast to n^{1/2-\epsilon} hardness
for polynomial-time algorithms, the k-hypergraph pricing problem admits
n^{\delta} approximation for any \delta >0 in quasi-polynomial time. This puts
this problem in a rare approximability class in which approximability
thresholds can be improved significantly by allowing algorithms to run in
quasi-polynomial time.Comment: The full version of FOCS 201
Inapproximability of the independent set polynomial in the complex plane
We study the complexity of approximating the independent set polynomial
of a graph with maximum degree when the activity
is a complex number.
This problem is already well understood when is real using
connections to the -regular tree . The key concept in that case is
the "occupation ratio" of the tree . This ratio is the contribution to
from independent sets containing the root of the tree, divided
by itself. If is such that the occupation ratio
converges to a limit, as the height of grows, then there is an FPTAS for
approximating on a graph with maximum degree .
Otherwise, the approximation problem is NP-hard.
Unsurprisingly, the case where is complex is more challenging.
Peters and Regts identified the complex values of for which the
occupation ratio of the -regular tree converges. These values carve a
cardioid-shaped region in the complex plane. Motivated by the
picture in the real case, they asked whether marks the true
approximability threshold for general complex values .
Our main result shows that for every outside of ,
the problem of approximating on graphs with maximum degree
at most is indeed NP-hard. In fact, when is outside of
and is not a positive real number, we give the stronger result
that approximating is actually #P-hard. If is a
negative real number outside of , we show that it is #P-hard to
even decide whether , resolving in the affirmative a conjecture
of Harvey, Srivastava and Vondrak.
Our proof techniques are based around tools from complex analysis -
specifically the study of iterative multivariate rational maps
Approximating the Spectrum of a Graph
The spectrum of a network or graph with adjacency matrix ,
consists of the eigenvalues of the normalized Laplacian . This set of eigenvalues encapsulates many aspects of the structure
of the graph, including the extent to which the graph posses community
structures at multiple scales. We study the problem of approximating the
spectrum , of in the regime where the graph is too
large to explicitly calculate the spectrum. We present a sublinear time
algorithm that, given the ability to query a random node in the graph and
select a random neighbor of a given node, computes a succinct representation of
an approximation , such that . Our algorithm has query complexity and running time ,
independent of the size of the graph, . We demonstrate the practical
viability of our algorithm on 15 different real-world graphs from the Stanford
Large Network Dataset Collection, including social networks, academic
collaboration graphs, and road networks. For the smallest of these graphs, we
are able to validate the accuracy of our algorithm by explicitly calculating
the true spectrum; for the larger graphs, such a calculation is computationally
prohibitive.
In addition we study the implications of our algorithm to property testing in
the bounded degree graph model
The quantum complexity of approximating the frequency moments
The 'th frequency moment of a sequence of integers is defined as , where is the number of times that occurs in the
sequence. Here we study the quantum complexity of approximately computing the
frequency moments in two settings. In the query complexity setting, we wish to
minimise the number of queries to the input used to approximate up to
relative error . We give quantum algorithms which outperform the best
possible classical algorithms up to quadratically. In the multiple-pass
streaming setting, we see the elements of the input one at a time, and seek to
minimise the amount of storage space, or passes over the data, used to
approximate . We describe quantum algorithms for , and
in this model which substantially outperform the best possible
classical algorithms in certain parameter regimes.Comment: 22 pages; v3: essentially published versio
Approximating the partition function of the ferromagnetic Potts model
We provide evidence that it is computationally difficult to approximate the
partition function of the ferromagnetic q-state Potts model when q>2.
Specifically we show that the partition function is hard for the complexity
class #RHPi_1 under approximation-preserving reducibility. Thus, it is as hard
to approximate the partition function as it is to find approximate solutions to
a wide range of counting problems, including that of determining the number of
independent sets in a bipartite graph. Our proof exploits the first order phase
transition of the "random cluster" model, which is a probability distribution
on graphs that is closely related to the q-state Potts model.Comment: Minor correction
Sublinear-Time Algorithms for Monomer-Dimer Systems on Bounded Degree Graphs
For a graph , let be the partition function of the
monomer-dimer system defined by , where is the
number of matchings of size in . We consider graphs of bounded degree
and develop a sublinear-time algorithm for estimating at an
arbitrary value within additive error with high
probability. The query complexity of our algorithm does not depend on the size
of and is polynomial in , and we also provide a lower bound
quadratic in for this problem. This is the first analysis of a
sublinear-time approximation algorithm for a # P-complete problem. Our
approach is based on the correlation decay of the Gibbs distribution associated
with . We show that our algorithm approximates the probability
for a vertex to be covered by a matching, sampled according to this Gibbs
distribution, in a near-optimal sublinear time. We extend our results to
approximate the average size and the entropy of such a matching within an
additive error with high probability, where again the query complexity is
polynomial in and the lower bound is quadratic in .
Our algorithms are simple to implement and of practical use when dealing with
massive datasets. Our results extend to other systems where the correlation
decay is known to hold as for the independent set problem up to the critical
activity
The Complexity of Approximately Counting Tree Homomorphisms
We study two computational problems, parameterised by a fixed tree H.
#HomsTo(H) is the problem of counting homomorphisms from an input graph G to H.
#WHomsTo(H) is the problem of counting weighted homomorphisms to H, given an
input graph G and a weight function for each vertex v of G. Even though H is a
tree, these problems turn out to be sufficiently rich to capture all of the
known approximation behaviour in #P. We give a complete trichotomy for
#WHomsTo(H). If H is a star then #WHomsTo(H) is in FP. If H is not a star but
it does not contain a certain induced subgraph J_3 then #WHomsTo(H) is
equivalent under approximation-preserving (AP) reductions to #BIS, the problem
of counting independent sets in a bipartite graph. This problem is complete for
the class #RHPi_1 under AP-reductions. Finally, if H contains an induced J_3
then #WHomsTo(H) is equivalent under AP-reductions to #SAT, the problem of
counting satisfying assignments to a CNF Boolean formula. Thus, #WHomsTo(H) is
complete for #P under AP-reductions. The results are similar for #HomsTo(H)
except that a rich structure emerges if H contains an induced J_3. We show that
there are trees H for which #HomsTo(H) is #SAT-equivalent (disproving a
plausible conjecture of Kelk). There is an interesting connection between these
homomorphism-counting problems and the problem of approximating the partition
function of the ferromagnetic Potts model. In particular, we show that for a
family of graphs J_q, parameterised by a positive integer q, the problem
#HomsTo(H) is AP-interreducible with the problem of approximating the partition
function of the q-state Potts model. It was not previously known that the Potts
model had a homomorphism-counting interpretation. We use this connection to
obtain some additional upper bounds for the approximation complexity of
#HomsTo(J_q)
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