Maximum Matching Sans Maximal Matching: A New Approach for Finding Maximum Matchings in the Data Stream Model

Moran Feldman, Ariel Szarf

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

The problem of finding a maximum size matching in a graph (known as the maximum matching problem) is one of the most classical problems in computer science. Despite a significant body of work dedicated to the study of this problem in the data stream model, the state-of-the-art single-pass semi-streaming algorithm for it is still a simple greedy algorithm that computes a maximal matching, and this way obtains 1/2-approximation. Some previous works described two/three-pass algorithms that improve over this approximation ratio by using their second and third passes to improve the above mentioned maximal matching. One contribution of this paper continues this line of work by presenting new three-pass semi-streaming algorithms that work along these lines and obtain improved approximation ratios of 0.6111 and 0.5694 for triangle-free and general graphs, respectively. Unfortunately, a recent work [30] shows that the strategy of constructing a maximal matching in the first pass and then improving it in further passes has limitations. Additionally, this technique is unlikely to get us closer to single-pass semi-streaming algorithms obtaining a better than 1/2-approximation. Therefore, it is interesting to come up with algorithms that do something else with their first pass (we term such algorithms non-maximal-matching-first algorithms). No such algorithms are currently known (to the best of our knowledge), and the main contribution of this paper is describing such algorithms that obtain approximation ratios of 0.5384 and 0.5555 in two and three passes, respectively, for general graphs (the result for three passes improves over the previous state-of-the-art, but is worse than the result of this paper mentioned in the previous paragraph for general graphs). The improvements obtained by these results are, unfortunately, numerically not very impressive, but the main importance (in our opinion) of these results is in demonstrating the potential of non-maximal-matching-first algorithms.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationApproximation, Randomization, and Combinatorial Optimization. Algorithms and Techniques, APPROX/RANDOM 2022
EditorsAmit Chakrabarti, Chaitanya Swamy
PublisherSchloss Dagstuhl- Leibniz-Zentrum fur Informatik GmbH, Dagstuhl Publishing
ISBN (Electronic)9783959772495
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Sep 2022
Event25th International Conference on Approximation Algorithms for Combinatorial Optimization Problems and the 26th International Conference on Randomization and Computation, APPROX/RANDOM 2022 - Virtual, Urbana-Champaign, United States
Duration: 19 Sep 202221 Sep 2022

Publication series

NameLeibniz International Proceedings in Informatics, LIPIcs
Volume245
ISSN (Print)1868-8969

Conference

Conference25th International Conference on Approximation Algorithms for Combinatorial Optimization Problems and the 26th International Conference on Randomization and Computation, APPROX/RANDOM 2022
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityVirtual, Urbana-Champaign
Period19/09/2221/09/22

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© Moran Feldman and Ariel Szarf.

Keywords

  • Maximum matching
  • multi-pass algorithms
  • semi-streaming algorithms

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Software

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