Spencer's theorem in nearly input-sparsity time

Vishesh Jain; Ashwin Sah; Mehtaab Sawhney

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arXiv · 2206.04549

Spencer's theorem in nearly input-sparsity time

Vishesh Jain·Ashwin Sah·Mehtaab Sawhney

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Abstract

A celebrated theorem of Spencer states that for every set system $S_1,\dots, S_m \subseteq [n]$, there is a coloring of the ground set with $\{\pm 1\}$ with discrepancy $O(\sqrt{n\log(m/n+2)})$. We provide an algorithm to find such a coloring in near input-sparsity time $\tilde{O}(n+\sum_{i=1}^{m}|S_i|)$. A key ingredient in our work, which may be of independent interest, is a novel width reduction technique for solving linear programs, not of covering/packing type, in near input-sparsity time using the multiplicative weights update method.

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Vishesh Jain, Ashwin Sah, Mehtaab Sawhney. 2022-06-09. Spencer's theorem in nearly input-sparsity time. https://arxiv.org/abs/2206.04549

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