We introduce the hollow heap, a very simple data structure with the same
amortized efficiency as the classical Fibonacci heap. All heap operations
except delete and delete-min take O(1) time, worst case as well as amortized;
delete and delete-min take O(logn) amortized time on a heap of n items.
Hollow heaps are by far the simplest structure to achieve this. Hollow heaps
combine two novel ideas: the use of lazy deletion and re-insertion to do
decrease-key operations, and the use of a dag (directed acyclic graph) instead
of a tree or set of trees to represent a heap. Lazy deletion produces hollow
nodes (nodes without items), giving the data structure its name.Comment: 27 pages, 7 figures, preliminary version appeared in ICALP 201