arXiv subjects

Michael Kapralov

Publications and source records attributed to Michael Kapralov.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2019

Space Efficient Approximation to Maximum Matching Size from Uniform Edge Samples

Given a source of iid samples of edges of an input graph $G$ with $n$ vertices and $m$ edges, how many samples does one need to compute a constant factor approximation to the maximum matching size in $G$? Moreover, is it possible to obtain such an estimate in a small amount of space? We show that, on the one hand, this problem cannot be solved using a nontrivially sublinear (in $m$) number of samples: $m^{1-o(1)}$ samples are needed. On the other hand, a surprisingly space efficient algorithm for processing the samples exists: $O(\log^2 n)$ bits of space suffice to compute an estimate. Our main technical tool is a new peeling type algorithm for matching that we simulate using a recursive sampling process that crucially ensures that local neighborhood information from `dense' regions of the graph is provided at appropriately higher sampling rates. We show that a delicate balance between exploration depth and sampling rate allows our simulation to not lose precision over a logarithmic number of levels of recursion and achieve a constant factor approximation. The previous best result on matching size estimation from random samples was a $\log^{O(1)} n$ approximation [Kapralov et al'14]. Our algorithm also yields a constant factor approximate local computation algorithm (LCA) for matching with $O(d\log n)$ exploration starting from any vertex. Previous approaches were based on local simulations of randomized greedy, which take $O(d)$ time {\em in expectation over the starting vertex or edge} (Yoshida et al'09, Onak et al'12), and could not achieve a better than $d^2$ runtime. Interestingly, we also show that unlike our algorithm, the local simulation of randomized greedy that is the basis of the most efficient prior results does take $\wtΩ(d^2)\gg O(d\log n)$ time for a worst case edge even for $d=\exp(Θ(\sqrt{\log n}))$.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2019

Online Matching with General Arrivals

The online matching problem was introduced by Karp, Vazirani and Vazirani nearly three decades ago. In that seminal work, they studied this problem in bipartite graphs with vertices arriving only on one side, and presented optimal deterministic and randomized algorithms for this setting. In comparison, more general arrival models, such as edge arrivals and general vertex arrivals, have proven more challenging and positive results are known only for various relaxations of the problem. In particular, even the basic question of whether randomization allows one to beat the trivially-optimal deterministic competitive ratio of $\frac{1}{2}$ for either of these models was open. In this paper, we resolve this question for both these natural arrival models, and show the following. 1. For edge arrivals, randomization does not help --- no randomized algorithm is better than $\frac{1}{2}$ competitive. 2. For general vertex arrivals, randomization helps --- there exists a randomized $(\frac{1}{2}+Ω(1))$-competitive online matching algorithm.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2019

Dynamic Streaming Spectral Sparsification in Nearly Linear Time and Space

In this paper we consider the problem of computing spectral approximations to graphs in the single pass dynamic streaming model. We provide a linear sketching based solution that given a stream of edge insertions and deletions to a $n$-node undirected graph, uses $\tilde O(n)$ space, processes each update in $\tilde O(1)$ time, and with high probability recovers a spectral sparsifier in $\tilde O(n)$ time. Prior to our work, state of the art results either used near optimal $\tilde O(n)$ space complexity, but brute-force $Ω(n^2)$ recovery time [Kapralov et al.'14], or with subquadratic runtime, but polynomially suboptimal space complexity [Ahn et al.'14, Kapralov et al.'19]. Our main technical contribution is a novel method for `bucketing' vertices of the input graph into clusters that allows fast recovery of edges of sufficiently large effective resistance. Our algorithm first buckets vertices of the graph by performing ball-carving using (an approximation to) its effective resistance metric, and then recovers the high effective resistance edges from a sketched version of an electrical flow between vertices in a bucket, taking nearly linear time in the number of vertices overall. This process is performed at different geometric scales to recover a sample of edges with probabilities proportional to effective resistances and obtain an actual sparsifier of the input graph. This work provides both the first efficient $\ell_2$-sparse recovery algorithm for graphs and new primitives for manipulating the effective resistance embedding of a graph, both of which we hope have further applications.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2019

Faster Spectral Sparsification in Dynamic Streams

Graph sketching has emerged as a powerful technique for processing massive graphs that change over time (i.e., are presented as a dynamic stream of edge updates) over the past few years, starting with the work of Ahn, Guha and McGregor (SODA'12) on graph connectivity via sketching. In this paper we consider the problem of designing spectral approximations to graphs, or spectral sparsifiers, using a small number of linear measurements, with the additional constraint that the sketches admit an efficient recovery scheme. Prior to our work, sketching algorithms were known with near optimal $\tilde O(n)$ space complexity, but $Ω(n^2)$ time decoding (brute-force over all potential edges of the input graph), or with subquadratic time, but rather large $Ω(n^{5/3})$ space complexity (due to their reliance on a rather weak relation between connectivity and effective resistances). In this paper we first show how a simple relation between effective resistances and edge connectivity leads to an improved $\widetilde O(n^{3/2})$ space and time algorithm, which we show is a natural barrier for connectivity based approaches. Our main result then gives the first algorithm that achieves subquadratic recovery time, i.e. avoids brute-force decoding, and at the same time nontrivially uses the effective resistance metric, achieving $n^{1.4+o(1)}$ space and recovery time. Our main technical contribution is a novel method for `bucketing' vertices of the input graph into clusters that allows fast recovery of edges of high effective resistance: the buckets are formed by performing ball-carving on the input graph using (an approximation to) its effective resistance metric. We feel that this technique is likely to be of independent interest.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2019

Dimension-independent Sparse Fourier Transform

The Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) is a fundamental computational primitive, and the fastest known algorithm for computing the DFT is the FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) algorithm. One remarkable feature of FFT is the fact that its runtime depends only on the size $N$ of the input vector, but not on the dimensionality of the input domain: FFT runs in time $O(N\log N)$ irrespective of whether the DFT in question is on $\mathbb{Z}_N$ or $\mathbb{Z}_n^d$ for some $d>1$, where $N=n^d$. The state of the art for Sparse FFT, i.e. the problem of computing the DFT of a signal that has at most $k$ nonzeros in Fourier domain, is very different: all current techniques for sublinear time computation of Sparse FFT incur an exponential dependence on the dimension $d$ in the runtime. In this paper we give the first algorithm that computes the DFT of a $k$-sparse signal in time $\text{poly}(k, \log N)$ in any dimension $d$, avoiding the curse of dimensionality inherent in all previously known techniques. Our main tool is a new class of filters that we refer to as adaptive aliasing filters: these filters allow isolating frequencies of a $k$-Fourier sparse signal using $O(k)$ samples in time domain and $O(k\log N)$ runtime per frequency, in any dimension $d$. We also investigate natural average case models of the input signal: (1) worst case support in Fourier domain with randomized coefficients and (2) random locations in Fourier domain with worst case coefficients. Our techniques lead to an $\widetilde O(k^2)$ time algorithm for the former and an $\widetilde O(k)$ time algorithm for the latter.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2018

A Universal Sampling Method for Reconstructing Signals with Simple Fourier Transforms

Reconstructing continuous signals from a small number of discrete samples is a fundamental problem across science and engineering. In practice, we are often interested in signals with 'simple' Fourier structure, such as bandlimited, multiband, and Fourier sparse signals. More broadly, any prior knowledge about a signal's Fourier power spectrum can constrain its complexity. Intuitively, signals with more highly constrained Fourier structure require fewer samples to reconstruct. We formalize this intuition by showing that, roughly, a continuous signal from a given class can be approximately reconstructed using a number of samples proportional to the *statistical dimension* of the allowed power spectrum of that class. Further, in nearly all settings, this natural measure tightly characterizes the sample complexity of signal reconstruction. Surprisingly, we also show that, up to logarithmic factors, a universal non-uniform sampling strategy can achieve this optimal complexity for *any class of signals*. We present a simple and efficient algorithm for recovering a signal from the samples taken. For bandlimited and sparse signals, our method matches the state-of-the-art. At the same time, it gives the first computationally and sample efficient solution to a broad range of problems, including multiband signal reconstruction and kriging and Gaussian process regression tasks in one dimension. Our work is based on a novel connection between randomized linear algebra and signal reconstruction with constrained Fourier structure. We extend tools based on statistical leverage score sampling and column-based matrix reconstruction to the approximation of continuous linear operators that arise in signal reconstruction. We believe that these extensions are of independent interest and serve as a foundation for tackling a broad range of continuous time problems using randomized methods.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2018

An Optimal Space Lower Bound for Approximating MAX-CUT

We consider the problem of estimating the value of MAX-CUT in a graph in the streaming model of computation. At one extreme, there is a trivial $2$-approximation for this problem that uses only $O(\log n)$ space, namely, count the number of edges and output half of this value as the estimate for the size of the MAX-CUT. On the other extreme, for any fixed $ε> 0$, if one allows $\tilde{O}(n)$ space, a $(1+ε)$-approximate solution to the MAX-CUT value can be obtained by storing an $\tilde{O}(n)$-size sparsifier that essentially preserves MAX-CUT value. Our main result is that any (randomized) single pass streaming algorithm that breaks the $2$-approximation barrier requires $Ω(n)$-space, thus resolving the space complexity of any non-trivial approximations of the MAX-CUT value to within polylogarithmic factors in the single pass streaming model. We achieve the result by presenting a tight analysis of the Implicit Hidden Partition Problem introduced by Kapralov et al.[SODA'17] for an arbitrarily large number of players. In this problem a number of players receive random matchings of $Ω(n)$ size together with random bits on the edges, and their task is to determine whether the bits correspond to parities of some hidden bipartition, or are just uniformly random. Unlike all previous Fourier analytic communication lower bounds, our analysis does not directly use bounds on the $\ell_2$ norm of Fourier coefficients of a typical message at any given weight level that follow from hypercontractivity. Instead, we use the fact that graphs received by players are sparse (matchings) to obtain strong upper bounds on the $\ell_1$ norm of the Fourier coefficients of the messages of individual players, and then argue, using the convolution theorem, that similar strong bounds on the $\ell_1$ norm are essentially preserved once messages of different players are combined.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2018

A Simple Sublinear-Time Algorithm for Counting Arbitrary Subgraphs via Edge Sampling

In the subgraph counting problem, we are given a input graph $G(V, E)$ and a target graph $H$; the goal is to estimate the number of occurrences of $H$ in $G$. Our focus here is on designing sublinear-time algorithms for approximately counting occurrences of $H$ in $G$ in the setting where the algorithm is given query access to $G$. This problem has been studied in several recent papers which primarily focused on specific families of graphs $H$ such as triangles, cliques, and stars. However, not much is known about approximate counting of arbitrary graphs $H$. This is in sharp contrast to the closely related subgraph enumeration problem that has received significant attention in the database community as the database join problem. The AGM bound shows that the maximum number of occurrences of any arbitrary subgraph $H$ in a graph $G$ with $m$ edges is $O(m^{ρ(H)})$, where $ρ(H)$ is the fractional edge-cover of $H$, and enumeration algorithms with matching runtime are known for any $H$. We bridge this gap between subgraph counting and subgraph enumeration by designing a sublinear-time algorithm that can estimate the number of any arbitrary subgraph $H$ in $G$, denoted by $\#H$, to within a $(1\pm ε)$-approximation w.h.p. in $O(\frac{m^{ρ(H)}}{\#H}) \cdot poly(\log{n},1/ε)$ time. Our algorithm is allowed the standard set of queries for general graphs, namely degree queries, pair queries and neighbor queries, plus an additional edge-sample query that returns an edge chosen uniformly at random. The performance of our algorithm matches those of Eden et.al. [FOCS 2015, STOC 2018] for counting triangles and cliques and extend them to all choices of subgraph $H$ under the additional assumption of edge-sample queries. We further show that our algorithm works for the more general database join size estimation problem and prove a matching lower bound for this problem.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2018

Testing Graph Clusterability: Algorithms and Lower Bounds

We consider the problem of testing graph cluster structure: given access to a graph $G=(V, E)$, can we quickly determine whether the graph can be partitioned into a few clusters with good inner conductance, or is far from any such graph? This is a generalization of the well-studied problem of testing graph expansion, where one wants to distinguish between the graph having good expansion (i.e.\ being a good single cluster) and the graph having a sparse cut (i.e.\ being a union of at least two clusters). A recent work of Czumaj, Peng, and Sohler (STOC'15) gave an ingenious sublinear time algorithm for testing $k$-clusterability in time $\tilde{O}(n^{1/2} \text{poly}(k))$: their algorithm implicitly embeds a random sample of vertices of the graph into Euclidean space, and then clusters the samples based on estimates of Euclidean distances between the points. This yields a very efficient testing algorithm, but only works if the cluster structure is very strong: it is necessary to assume that the gap between conductances of accepted and rejected graphs is at least logarithmic in the size of the graph $G$. In this paper we show how one can leverage more refined geometric information, namely angles as opposed to distances, to obtain a sublinear time tester that works even when the gap is a sufficiently large constant. Our tester is based on the singular value decomposition of a natural matrix derived from random walk transition probabilities from a small sample of seed nodes. We complement our algorithm with a matching lower bound on the query complexity of testing clusterability. Our lower bound is based on a novel property testing problem, which we analyze using Fourier analytic tools. As a byproduct of our techniques, we also achieve new lower bounds for the problem of approximating MAX-CUT value in sublinear time.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2018

The Sketching Complexity of Graph and Hypergraph Counting

Subgraph counting is a fundamental primitive in graph processing, with applications in social network analysis (e.g., estimating the clustering coefficient of a graph), database processing and other areas. The space complexity of subgraph counting has been studied extensively in the literature, but many natural settings are still not well understood. In this paper we revisit the subgraph (and hypergraph) counting problem in the sketching model, where the algorithm's state as it processes a stream of updates to the graph is a linear function of the stream. This model has recently received a lot of attention in the literature, and has become a standard model for solving dynamic graph streaming problems. In this paper we give a tight bound on the sketching complexity of counting the number of occurrences of a small subgraph $H$ in a bounded degree graph $G$ presented as a stream of edge updates. Specifically, we show that the space complexity of the problem is governed by the fractional vertex cover number of the graph $H$. Our subgraph counting algorithm implements a natural vertex sampling approach, with sampling probabilities governed by the vertex cover of $H$. Our main technical contribution lies in a new set of Fourier analytic tools that we develop to analyze multiplayer communication protocols in the simultaneous communication model, allowing us to prove a tight lower bound. We believe that our techniques are likely to find applications in other settings. Besides giving tight bounds for all graphs $H$, both our algorithm and lower bounds extend to the hypergraph setting, albeit with some loss in space complexity.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2018

Random Fourier Features for Kernel Ridge Regression: Approximation Bounds and Statistical Guarantees

Random Fourier features is one of the most popular techniques for scaling up kernel methods, such as kernel ridge regression. However, despite impressive empirical results, the statistical properties of random Fourier features are still not well understood. In this paper we take steps toward filling this gap. Specifically, we approach random Fourier features from a spectral matrix approximation point of view, give tight bounds on the number of Fourier features required to achieve a spectral approximation, and show how spectral matrix approximation bounds imply statistical guarantees for kernel ridge regression. Qualitatively, our results are twofold: on the one hand, we show that random Fourier feature approximation can provably speed up kernel ridge regression under reasonable assumptions. At the same time, we show that the method is suboptimal, and sampling from a modified distribution in Fourier space, given by the leverage function of the kernel, yields provably better performance. We study this optimal sampling distribution for the Gaussian kernel, achieving a nearly complete characterization for the case of low-dimensional bounded datasets. Based on this characterization, we propose an efficient sampling scheme with guarantees superior to random Fourier features in this regime.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2017

Sample Efficient Estimation and Recovery in Sparse FFT via Isolation on Average

The problem of computing the Fourier Transform of a signal whose spectrum is dominated by a small number $k$ of frequencies quickly and using a small number of samples of the signal in time domain (the Sparse FFT problem) has received significant attention recently. It is known how to approximately compute the $k$-sparse Fourier transform in $\approx k\log^2 n$ time [Hassanieh et al'STOC'12], or using the optimal number $O(k\log n)$ of samples [Indyk et al'FOCS'14] in time domain, or come within $(\log\log n)^{O(1)}$ factors of both these bounds simultaneously, but no algorithm achieving the optimal $O(k\log n)$ bound in sublinear time is known. In this paper we propose a new technique for analysing noisy hashing schemes that arise in Sparse FFT, which we refer to as isolation on average. We apply this technique to two problems in Sparse FFT: estimating the values of a list of frequencies using few samples and computing Sparse FFT itself, achieving sample-optimal results in $k\log^{O(1)} n$ time for both. We feel that our approach will likely be of interest in designing Fourier sampling schemes for more general settings (e.g. model based Sparse FFT).

cs.DS↗

arXiv2017

An Adaptive Sublinear-Time Block Sparse Fourier Transform

The problem of approximately computing the $k$ dominant Fourier coefficients of a vector $X$ quickly, and using few samples in time domain, is known as the Sparse Fourier Transform (sparse FFT) problem. A long line of work on the sparse FFT has resulted in algorithms with $O(k\log n\log (n/k))$ runtime [Hassanieh et al., STOC'12] and $O(k\log n)$ sample complexity [Indyk et al., FOCS'14]. These results are proved using non-adaptive algorithms, and the latter $O(k\log n)$ sample complexity result is essentially the best possible under the sparsity assumption alone. This paper revisits the sparse FFT problem with the added twist that the sparse coefficients approximately obey a $(k_0,k_1)$-block sparse model. In this model, signal frequencies are clustered in $k_0$ intervals with width $k_1$ in Fourier space, where $k= k_0k_1$ is the total sparsity. Signals arising in applications are often well approximated by this model with $k_0\ll k$. Our main result is the first sparse FFT algorithm for $(k_0, k_1)$-block sparse signals with the sample complexity of $O^*(k_0k_1 + k_0\log(1+ k_0)\log n)$ at constant signal-to-noise ratios, and sublinear runtime. A similar sample complexity was previously achieved in the works on model-based compressive sensing using random Gaussian measurements, but used $Ω(n)$ runtime. To the best of our knowledge, our result is the first sublinear-time algorithm for model based compressed sensing, and the first sparse FFT result that goes below the $O(k\log n)$ sample complexity bound. Our algorithm crucially uses {\em adaptivity} to achieve the improved sample complexity bound, and we prove that adaptivity is in fact necessary if Fourier measurements are used: Any non-adaptive algorithm must use $Ω(k_0k_1\log \frac{n}{k_0k_1})$ samples for the $(k_0,k_1$)-block sparse model, ruling out improvements over the vanilla sparsity assumption.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2017

Optimal lower bounds for universal relation, and for samplers and finding duplicates in streams

In the communication problem $\mathbf{UR}$ (universal relation) [KRW95], Alice and Bob respectively receive $x, y \in\{0,1\}^n$ with the promise that $x\neq y$. The last player to receive a message must output an index $i$ such that $x_i\neq y_i$. We prove that the randomized one-way communication complexity of this problem in the public coin model is exactly $Θ(\min\{n,\log(1/δ)\log^2(\frac n{\log(1/δ)})\})$ for failure probability $δ$. Our lower bound holds even if promised $\mathop{support}(y)\subset \mathop{support}(x)$. As a corollary, we obtain optimal lower bounds for $\ell_p$-sampling in strict turnstile streams for $0\le p < 2$, as well as for the problem of finding duplicates in a stream. Our lower bounds do not need to use large weights, and hold even if promised $x\in\{0,1\}^n$ at all points in the stream. We give two different proofs of our main result. The first proof demonstrates that any algorithm $\mathcal A$ solving sampling problems in turnstile streams in low memory can be used to encode subsets of $[n]$ of certain sizes into a number of bits below the information theoretic minimum. Our encoder makes adaptive queries to $\mathcal A$ throughout its execution, but done carefully so as to not violate correctness. This is accomplished by injecting random noise into the encoder's interactions with $\mathcal A$, which is loosely motivated by techniques in differential privacy. Our second proof is via a novel randomized reduction from Augmented Indexing [MNSW98] which needs to interact with $\mathcal A$ adaptively. To handle the adaptivity we identify certain likely interaction patterns and union bound over them to guarantee correct interaction on all of them. To guarantee correctness, it is important that the interaction hides some of its randomness from $\mathcal A$ in the reduction.

cs.CC↗

arXiv2016

Sparse Fourier Transform in Any Constant Dimension with Nearly-Optimal Sample Complexity in Sublinear Time

We consider the problem of computing a $k$-sparse approximation to the Fourier transform of a length $N$ signal. Our main result is a randomized algorithm for computing such an approximation (i.e. achieving the $\ell_2/\ell_2$ sparse recovery guarantees using Fourier measurements) using $O_d(k\log N\log\log N)$ samples of the signal in time domain that runs in time $O_d(k\log^{d+3} N)$, where $d\geq 1$ is the dimensionality of the Fourier transform. The sample complexity matches the lower bound of $Ω(k\log (N/k))$ for non-adaptive algorithms due to \cite{DIPW} for any $k\leq N^{1-δ}$ for a constant $δ>0$ up to an $O(\log\log N)$ factor. Prior to our work a result with comparable sample complexity $k\log N \log^{O(1)}\log N$ and sublinear runtime was known for the Fourier transform on the line \cite{IKP}, but for any dimension $d\geq 2$ previously known techniques either suffered from a polylogarithmic factor loss in sample complexity or required $Ω(N)$ runtime.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2016

Subgraph Counting: Color Coding Beyond Trees

The problem of counting occurrences of query graphs in a large data graph, known as subgraph counting, is fundamental to several domains such as genomics and social network analysis. Many important special cases (e.g. triangle counting) have received significant attention. Color coding is a very general and powerful algorithmic technique for subgraph counting. Color coding has been shown to be effective in several applications, but scalable implementations are only known for the special case of {\em tree queries} (i.e. queries of treewidth one). In this paper we present the first efficient distributed implementation for color coding that goes beyond tree queries: our algorithm applies to any query graph of treewidth $2$. Since tree queries can be solved in time linear in the size of the data graph, our contribution is the first step into the realm of colour coding for queries that require superlinear running time in the worst case. This superlinear complexity leads to significant load balancing problems on graphs with heavy tailed degree distributions. Our algorithm structures the computation to work around high degree nodes in the data graph, and achieves very good runtime and scalability on a diverse collection of data and query graph pairs as a result. We also provide theoretical analysis of our algorithmic techniques, showing asymptotic improvements in runtime on random graphs with power law degree distributions, a popular model for real world graphs.

cs.DC↗

arXiv2015

Single Pass Spectral Sparsification in Dynamic Streams

We present the first single pass algorithm for computing spectral sparsifiers of graphs in the dynamic semi-streaming model. Given a single pass over a stream containing insertions and deletions of edges to a graph G, our algorithm maintains a randomized linear sketch of the incidence matrix of G into dimension O((1/epsilon^2) n polylog(n)). Using this sketch, at any point, the algorithm can output a (1 +/- epsilon) spectral sparsifier for G with high probability. While O((1/epsilon^2) n polylog(n)) space algorithms are known for computing "cut sparsifiers" in dynamic streams [AGM12b, GKP12] and spectral sparsifiers in "insertion-only" streams [KL11], prior to our work, the best known single pass algorithm for maintaining spectral sparsifiers in dynamic streams required sketches of dimension Omega((1/epsilon^2) n^(5/3)) [AGM14]. To achieve our result, we show that, using a coarse sparsifier of G and a linear sketch of G's incidence matrix, it is possible to sample edges by effective resistance, obtaining a spectral sparsifier of arbitrary precision. Sampling from the sketch requires a novel application of ell_2/ell_2 sparse recovery, a natural extension of the ell_0 methods used for cut sparsifiers in [AGM12b]. Recent work of [MP12] on row sampling for matrix approximation gives a recursive approach for obtaining the required coarse sparsifiers. Under certain restrictions, our approach also extends to the problem of maintaining a spectral approximation for a general matrix A^T A given a stream of updates to rows in A.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2014

Streaming Lower Bounds for Approximating MAX-CUT

We consider the problem of estimating the value of max cut in a graph in the streaming model of computation. At one extreme, there is a trivial $2$-approximation for this problem that uses only $O(\log n)$ space, namely, count the number of edges and output half of this value as the estimate for max cut value. On the other extreme, if one allows $\tilde{O}(n)$ space, then a near-optimal solution to the max cut value can be obtained by storing an $\tilde{O}(n)$-size sparsifier that essentially preserves the max cut. An intriguing question is if poly-logarithmic space suffices to obtain a non-trivial approximation to the max-cut value (that is, beating the factor $2$). It was recently shown that the problem of estimating the size of a maximum matching in a graph admits a non-trivial approximation in poly-logarithmic space. Our main result is that any streaming algorithm that breaks the $2$-approximation barrier requires $\tildeΩ(\sqrt{n})$ space even if the edges of the input graph are presented in random order. Our result is obtained by exhibiting a distribution over graphs which are either bipartite or $\frac{1}{2}$-far from being bipartite, and establishing that $\tildeΩ(\sqrt{n})$ space is necessary to differentiate between these two cases. Thus as a direct corollary we obtain that $\tildeΩ(\sqrt{n})$ space is also necessary to test if a graph is bipartite or $\frac{1}{2}$-far from being bipartite. We also show that for any $ε> 0$, any streaming algorithm that obtains a $(1 + ε)$-approximation to the max cut value when edges arrive in adversarial order requires $n^{1 - O(ε)}$ space, implying that $Ω(n)$ space is necessary to obtain an arbitrarily good approximation to the max cut value.

cs.DS↗