Time-Optimal Sublinear Algorithms for Matching and Vertex Cover

We study the problem of estimating the size of maximum matching and minimum vertex cover in sublinear time. Denoting the number of vertices by $n$ and the average degree in the graph by $\bar{d}$, we obtain the following results for both problems: * A multiplicative $(2+ε)$-approximation that takes $\tilde{O}(n/ε^2)$ time using adjacency list queries. * A multiplicative-additive $(2, εn)$-approximation in $\tilde{O}((\bar{d} + 1)/ε^2)$ time using adjacency list queries. * A multiplicative-additive $(2, εn)$-approximation in $\tilde{O}(n/ε^{3})$ time using adjacency matrix queries. All three results are provably time-optimal up to polylogarithmic factors culminating a long line of work on these problems. Our main contribution and the key ingredient leading to the bounds above is a new and near-tight analysis of the average query complexity of the randomized greedy maximal matching algorithm which improves upon a seminal result of Yoshida, Yamamoto, and Ito [STOC'09].

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