Searcharxiv⌕ Search
Home/Archive/arXiv

arXiv · 2507.19859

Improved 2-Approximate Shortest Paths for close vertex pairs

Manoj Gupta
View original source ↗Read source document ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

An influential result by Dor, Halperin, and Zwick (FOCS 1996, SICOMP 2000) implies an algorithm that can compute approximate shortest paths for all vertex pairs in $\tilde{O}(n^{2+O\left(\frac{1}{k}\right )})$ time, ensuring that the output distance is at most twice the actual shortest path, provided the pairs are at least $k$ apart, where $k \ge 2$. We present the first improvement on this result in over 25 years. Our algorithm achieves roughly same $\tilde{O}(n^{2+\frac{1}{k}})$ runtime but applies to vertex pairs merely $O(\log k)$ apart, where $\log k \ge 1$. When $k=\log n$, the running time of our algorithm is $\tilde{O}(n^2)$ and it works for all pairs at least $O(\log \log n)$ apart. Our algorithm is combinatorial, randomized, and returns correct results for all pairs with a high probability.

Explore related subjects

cs.DS

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Manoj Gupta. 2025-07-26. Improved 2-Approximate Shortest Paths for close vertex pairs. https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.19859

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

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↗