New Pairwise Spanners

Let G = (V,E) be an undirected unweighted graph on n vertices. A subgraph H of G is called an (all-pairs) purely additive spanner with stretch beta if for every (u,v) in V times V, mathsf{dist}_H(u,v) le mathsf{dist}_G(u,v) + beta. The problem of computing sparse spanners with small stretch beta is well-studied. Here we consider the following relaxation: we are given psubseteq V times V and we seek a sparse subgraph H where mathsf{dist}_H(u,v)le mathsf{dist}_G(u,v) + beta for each (u,v) in p. Such a subgraph is called a pairwise spanner with additive stretch beta and our goal is to construct such subgraphs that are sparser than all-pairs spanners with the same stretch. We show sparse pairwise spanners with additive stretch 4 and with additive stretch 6. We also consider the following special cases: p = S times V and p = S times T, where Ssubseteq V and Tsubseteq V, and show sparser pairwise spanners for these cases

Preserving Distances in Very Faulty Graphs

Preservers and additive spanners are sparse (hence cheap to store) subgraphs that preserve the distances between given pairs of nodes exactly or with some small additive error, respectively. Since real-world networks are prone to failures, it makes sense to study fault-tolerant versions of the above structures. This turns out to be a surprisingly difficult task. For every small but arbitrary set of edge or vertex failures, the preservers and spanners need to contain replacement paths around the faulted set. Unfortunately, the complexity of the interaction between replacement paths blows up significantly, even from 1 to 2 faults, and the structure of optimal preservers and spanners is poorly understood. In particular, no nontrivial bounds for preservers and additive spanners are known when the number of faults is bigger than 2. Even the answer to the following innocent question is completely unknown: what is the worst-case size of a preserver for a single pair of nodes in the presence of f edge faults? There are no super-linear lower bounds, nor subquadratic upper bounds for f>2. In this paper we make substantial progress on this and other fundamental questions: - We present the first truly sub-quadratic size fault-tolerant single-pair preserver in unweighted (possibly directed) graphs: for any n node graph and any fixed number f of faults, O~(fn^{2-1/2^f}) size suffices. Our result also generalizes to the single-source (all targets) case, and can be used to build new fault-tolerant additive spanners (for all pairs). - The size of the above single-pair preserver grows to O(n^2) for increasing f. We show that this is necessary even in undirected unweighted graphs, and even if you allow for a small additive error: If you aim at size O(n^{2-eps}) for eps>0, then the additive error has to be Omega(eps f). This surprisingly matches known upper bounds in the literature. - For weighted graphs, we provide matching upper and lower bounds for the single pair case. Namely, the size of the preserver is Theta(n^2) for f > 1 in both directed and undirected graphs, while for f=1 the size is Theta(n) in undirected graphs. For directed graphs, we have a superlinear upper bound and a matching lower bound. Most of our lower bounds extend to the distance oracle setting, where rather than a subgraph we ask for any compact data structure

Improved Purely Additive Fault-Tolerant Spanners

Let $G$ be an unweighted $n$-node undirected graph. A \emph{$\beta$-additive spanner} of $G$ is a spanning subgraph $H$ of $G$ such that distances in $H$ are stretched at most by an additive term $\beta$ w.r.t. the corresponding distances in $G$. A natural research goal related with spanners is that of designing \emph{sparse} spanners with \emph{low} stretch. In this paper, we focus on \emph{fault-tolerant} additive spanners, namely additive spanners which are able to preserve their additive stretch even when one edge fails. We are able to improve all known such spanners, in terms of either sparsity or stretch. In particular, we consider the sparsest known spanners with stretch $6$, $28$, and $38$, and reduce the stretch to $4$, $10$, and $14$, respectively (while keeping the same sparsity). Our results are based on two different constructions. On one hand, we show how to augment (by adding a \emph{small} number of edges) a fault-tolerant additive \emph{sourcewise spanner} (that approximately preserves distances only from a given set of source nodes) into one such spanner that preserves all pairwise distances. On the other hand, we show how to augment some known fault-tolerant additive spanners, based on clustering techniques. This way we decrease the additive stretch without any asymptotic increase in their size. We also obtain improved fault-tolerant additive spanners for the case of one vertex failure, and for the case of $f$ edge failures.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures, ESA 201

Simpler and Higher Lower Bounds for Shortcut Sets

We provide a variety of lower bounds for the well-known shortcut set problem: how much can one decrease the diameter of a directed graph on $n$ vertices and $m$ edges by adding $O(n)$ or $O(m)$ of shortcuts from the transitive closure of the graph. Our results are based on a vast simplification of the recent construction of Bodwin and Hoppenworth [FOCS 2023] which was used to show an $\widetilde{\Omega}(n^{1/4})$ lower bound for the $O(n)$-sized shortcut set problem. We highlight that our simplification completely removes the use of the convex sets by B\'ar\'any and Larman [Math. Ann. 1998] used in all previous lower bound constructions. Our simplification also removes the need for randomness and further removes some log factors. This allows us to generalize the construction to higher dimensions, which in turn can be used to show the following results. For $O(m)$-sized shortcut sets, we show an $\Omega(n^{1/5})$ lower bound, improving on the previous best $\Omega(n^{1/8})$ lower bound. For all $\varepsilon > 0$, we show that there exists a $\delta > 0$ such that there are $n$-vertex $O(n)$-edge graphs $G$ where adding any shortcut set of size $O(n^{2-\varepsilon})$ keeps the diameter of $G$ at $\Omega(n^\delta)$. This improves the sparsity of the constructed graph compared to a known similar result by Hesse [SODA 2003]. We also consider the sourcewise setting for shortcut sets: given a graph $G=(V,E)$, a set $S\subseteq V$, how much can we decrease the sourcewise diameter of $G$, $\max_{(s, v) \in S \times V, \text{dist}(s, v) < \infty} \text{dist}(s,v)$ by adding a set of edges $H$ from the transitive closure of $G$? We show that for any integer $d \ge 2$, there exists a graph $G=(V, E)$ on $n$ vertices and $S \subseteq V$ with $|S| = \widetilde{\Theta}(n^{3/(d+3)})$, such that when adding $O(n)$ or $O(m)$ shortcuts, the sourcewise diameter is $\widetilde{\Omega}(|S|^{1/3})$.Comment: To appear in SODA 2024. Abstract shortened to fit arXiv requirement