Towards a Unified Theory of Sparsification for Matching Problems

Sepehr Assadi; Aaron Bernstein

Home/Archive/arXiv

arXiv · 1811.02009

Towards a Unified Theory of Sparsification for Matching Problems

Sepehr Assadi·Aaron Bernstein

View original source ↗Read source document ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

In this paper, we present a construction of a `matching sparsifier', that is, a sparse subgraph of the given graph that preserves large matchings approximately and is robust to modifications of the graph. We use this matching sparsifier to obtain several new algorithmic results for the maximum matching problem: * An almost $(3/2)$-approximation one-way communication protocol for the maximum matching problem, significantly simplifying the $(3/2)$-approximation protocol of Goel, Kapralov, and Khanna (SODA 2012) and extending it from bipartite graphs to general graphs. * An almost $(3/2)$-approximation algorithm for the stochastic matching problem, improving upon and significantly simplifying the previous $1.999$-approximation algorithm of Assadi, Khanna, and Li (EC 2017). * An almost $(3/2)$-approximation algorithm for the fault-tolerant matching problem, which, to our knowledge, is the first non-trivial algorithm for this problem. Our matching sparsifier is obtained by proving new properties of the edge-degree constrained subgraph (EDCS) of Bernstein and Stein (ICALP 2015; SODA 2016)---designed in the context of maintaining matchings in dynamic graphs---that identifies EDCS as an excellent choice for a matching sparsifier. This leads to surprisingly simple and non-technical proofs of the above results in a unified way. Along the way, we also provide a much simpler proof of the fact that an EDCS is guaranteed to contain a large matching, which may be of independent interest.

Explore related subjects

cs.DS

Keep this discovery

BibTeX RIS

Sepehr Assadi, Aaron Bernstein. 2018-11-05. Towards a Unified Theory of Sparsification for Matching Problems. https://arxiv.org/abs/1811.02009

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

arXiv2026

Quasi-Monte Carlo Beyond Hardy-Krause II: $(1 + \varepsilon)n$ Samples Suffice

Numerical integration studies how well one can estimate the integral of a function $f$ over $[0,1)^d$ using $n$ sample points. The two classical methods, Monte Carlo (MC) and quasi-Monte Carlo (QMC), have complementary strengths and weaknesses, and a fundamental question is to design an approach that combines the benefits of both. Recently, building on the transference principle in discrepancy theory, Bansal and Jiang~\cite{BJ25a} gave a randomized QMC method that bridges MC and QMC guarantees using only i.i.d.\ samples. Their method also goes beyond the classical Koksma--Hlawka inequality: it achieves integration error $\widetilde{O}_d(\sigma_{\mathsf{SO}}(f)/n)$, where the smoothed-out variation $\sigma_{\mathsf{SO}}(f)$ can be substantially smaller than the Hardy--Krause variation that governs the classical bound. However, their algorithm requires $n^2$ i.i.d.\ samples as input, and this quadratic blowup is inherent to any method based on the transference principle. In this work, we bypass the quadratic blowup: for any constant $\varepsilon > 0$, we show that $(1+\varepsilon)n$ i.i.d.\ samples suffice to both obtain the beyond-Hardy--Krause guarantee of~\cite{BJ25a}, resolving an open problem posed there, and to produce low-discrepancy point sequences. Our algorithms are variants of the online Haar-thinning method of Dwivedi, Feldheim, Gurel-Gurevich, and Ramdas~\cite{DFG+19}.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2026

A deterministic $(1+\varepsilon)^n$ approximation for the permanent of a nonnegative matrix

For every fixed $0<\varepsilon\le1$, we give a deterministic strongly polynomial algorithm that, given a nonnegative matrix $A\in\mathbb{R}_{\ge0}^{n\times n}$, returns $Q$ satisfying $\operatorname{per} A\le Q\le(1+\varepsilon)^n\operatorname{per} A$.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2026

Single-Exponential Algorithms and a Polynomial Kernel for Strong Connectivity Augmentation

Strong Connectivity Augmentation (SCA) asks whether a directed acyclic graph can be made strongly connected by adding at most $k$ prescribed links whose total weight is within a given budget. Klinkby, Misra, and Saurabh (SODA 2021) gave an $O^*(2^{O(k\log k)})$-time algorithm and asked whether the problem admits a single-exponential parameterized algorithm and a polynomial kernel. We answer both questions affirmatively: SCA can be solved in $O^*(9^k)$ time and admits a polynomial kernel with $O(k^4)$ vertices and $O(k^{16})$ bits. For unweighted SCA, we obtain $O^*(4^k)$ time and a kernel with $O(k^3)$ vertices. Our algorithms are based on a particularly simple reduction to Strongly Connected Spanning Subgraph with two edge costs.

cs.DS↗