We exhibit a strong connection between cover times of graphs, Gaussian processes, and Talagrand's theory of majorizing measures. In particular, we show that the cover time of any graph @math is equivalent, up to universal constants, to the square of the expected maximum of the Gaussian free field on @math , scaled by the number of edges in @math . This allows us to resolve a number of open questions. We give a deterministic polynomial-time algorithm that computes the cover time to within an O(1) factor for any graph, answering a question of Aldous and Fill (1994). We also positively resolve the blanket time conjectures of Winkler and Zuckerman (1996), showing that for any graph, the blanket and cover times are within an O(1) factor. The best previous approximation factor for both these problems was @math for @math -vertex graphs, due to Kahn, Kim, Lovasz, and Vu (2000).
A fundamental bound of Matthews @cite_46 shows that @math where we recall that @math is the expected hitting time from @math to @math . Using the straightforward lower bound @math , this fact provides a deterministic @math -approximation to @math in @math -node graphs.
@cite_46
2068008593
A general technique for proving lower bounds on expected covering times of random walks on graphs in terms of expected hitting times between vertices is given. This technique is used to prove (i) A tight bound of @math for the two-dimensional torus; (ii) A tight bound of @math for trees with maximum degree @math ; (iii) Tight bounds of @math for rapidly mixing walks on vertex transitive graphs, where @math denotes the maximum expected hitting time between vertices.In addition to these new results, the technique allows several known lower bounds on cover times to be systematically proved, often in a much simpler way.Finally, a different technique is used to prove an @math lower bound on the cover time, where @math is the second largest eigenvalue of the transition matrix. This was previously known only in the case where the walk starts in the stationary distribution [... We study the broadcast version of the CONGEST CLIQUE model of distributed computing. In this model, in each round, any node in a network of size @math can send the same message (i.e. broadcast a message) of limited size to every other node in the network. Nanongkai presented in [STOC'14] a randomized @math -approximation algorithm to compute all pairs shortest paths (APSP) in time @math on weighted graphs, where we use the convention that @math is essentially @math polylog @math and @math is essentially @math polylog @math . We complement this result by proving that any randomized @math -approximation of APSP and @math -approximation of the diameter of a graph takes @math time in the worst case. This demonstrates that getting a negligible improvement in the approximation factor requires significantly more time. Furthermore this bound implies that already computing a @math -approximation of all pairs shortest paths is among the hardest graph-problems in the broadcast-version of the CONGEST CLIQUE model and contrasts a recent @math -approximation for APSP that runs in time @math in the unicast version of the CONGEST CLIQUE model. On the positive side we provide a deterministic version of Nanongkai's @math -approximation algorithm for APSP. To do so we present a fast deterministic construction of small hitting sets. We also show how to replace another randomized part within Nanongkai's algorithm with a deterministic source-detection algorithm designed for the CONGEST model presented by Lenzen and Peleg at PODC'13. We consider the problem of broadcasting in an unknown radio network modeled as a directed graph @math , where @math . In unknown networks, every node knows only its own label, while it is unaware of any other parameter of the network, including its neighborhood and even any upper bound on the number of nodes. We show an @math upper bound on the time complexity of deterministic broadcasting. This is an improvement over the currently best upper bound @math for arbitrary networks, thus shrinking exponentially the existing gap between the lower bound @math and the upper bound from @math to @math . Motivated by the need to understand the algorithmic foundations of distributed large-scale graph computations, we study some fundamental graph problems in a message-passing model for distributed computing where @math machines jointly perform computations on graphs with @math nodes (typically, @math ). The input graph is assumed to be initially randomly partitioned among the @math machines. Communication is point-to-point, and the goal is to minimize the number of communication rounds of the computation. We present (almost) tight bounds for the round complexity of two fundamental graph problems, namely PageRank computation and triangle enumeration. Our tight lower bounds, a main contribution of the paper, are established through an information-theoretic approach that relates the round complexity to the minimal amount of information required by machines for correctly solving a problem. Our approach is generic and might be useful in showing lower bounds in the context of similar problems and similar models. We show a lower bound of @math rounds for computing the PageRank. (Notation @math hides a @math factor.) We also present a simple distributed algorithm that computes the PageRank of all the nodes of a graph in @math rounds (notation @math hides a @math factor and an additive @math term). For triangle enumeration, we show a lower bound of @math rounds, where @math is the number of edges of the graph. Our result implies a lower bound of @math for the congested clique, which is tight up to logarithmic factors. We also present a distributed algorithm that enumerates all the triangles of a graph in @math rounds. Over the past 30 years numerous algorithms have been designed for symmetry breaking problems in the LOCAL model, such as maximal matching, MIS, vertex coloring, and edge-coloring. For most problems the best randomized algorithm is at least exponentially faster than the best deterministic algorithm. In this paper we prove that these exponential gaps are necessary and establish connections between the deterministic and randomized complexities in the LOCAL model. Each result has a very compelling take-away message: 1. Fast @math -coloring of trees requires random bits: Building on the recent lower bounds of , we prove that the randomized complexity of @math -coloring a tree with maximum degree @math is @math , whereas its deterministic complexity is @math for any @math . This also establishes a large separation between the deterministic complexity of @math -coloring and @math -coloring trees. 2. Randomized lower bounds imply deterministic lower bounds: We prove that any deterministic algorithm for a natural class of problems that runs in @math rounds can be transformed to run in @math rounds. If the transformed algorithm violates a lower bound (even allowing randomization), then one can conclude that the problem requires @math time deterministically. 3. Deterministic lower bounds imply randomized lower bounds: We prove that the randomized complexity of any natural problem on instances of size @math is at least its deterministic complexity on instances of size @math . This shows that a deterministic @math lower bound for any problem implies a randomized @math lower bound. It also illustrates that the graph shattering technique is absolutely essential to the LOCAL model. This paper addresses the cornerstone family of in distributed computing, and investigates the curious gap between randomized and deterministic solutions under bandwidth restrictions. Our main contribution is in providing tools for derandomizing solutions to local problems, when the @math nodes can only send @math -bit messages in each round of communication. We combine bounded independence, which we show to be sufficient for some algorithms, with the method of conditional expectations and with additional machinery, to obtain the following results. Our techniques give a deterministic maximal independent set (MIS) algorithm in the CONGEST model, where the communication graph is identical to the input graph, in @math rounds, where @math is the diameter of the graph. The best known running time in terms of @math alone is @math , which is super-polylogarithmic, and requires large messages. For the CONGEST model, the only known previous solution is a coloring-based @math -round algorithm, where @math is the maximal degree in the graph. On the way to obtaining the above, we show that in the model, which allows all-to-all communication, there is a deterministic MIS algorithm that runs in @math rounds. , where @math is the maximum degree. When @math , the bound improves to @math and holds also for @math -coloring. In addition, we deterministically construct a @math -spanner with @math edges in @math rounds. For comparison, in the more stringent CONGEST model, the best deterministic algorithm for constructing a @math -spanner with @math edges runs in @math rounds. We consider the problem of topology recognition in wireless (radio) networks modeled as undirected graphs. Topology recognition is a fundamental task in which every node of the network has to output a map of the underlying graph i.e., an isomorphic copy of it, and situate itself in this map. In wireless networks, nodes communicate in synchronous rounds. In each round a node can either transmit a message to all its neighbors, or stay silent and listen. At the receiving end, a node @math hears a message from a neighbor @math in a given round, if @math listens in this round, and if @math is its only neighbor that transmits in this round. Nodes have labels which are (not necessarily different) binary strings. The length of a labeling scheme is the largest length of a label. We concentrate on wireless networks modeled by trees, and we investigate two problems. What is the shortest labeling scheme that permits topology recognition in all wireless tree networks of diameter @math and maximum degree @math ? What is the fastest topology recognition algorithm working for all wireless tree networks of diameter @math and maximum degree @math , using such a short labeling scheme? We are interested in deterministic topology recognition algorithms. For the first problem, we show that the minimum length of a labeling scheme allowing topology recognition in all trees of maximum degree @math is @math . For such short schemes, used by an algorithm working for the class of trees of diameter @math and maximum degree @math , we show almost matching bounds on the time of topology recognition: an upper bound @math , and a lower bound @math , for any constant @math . We study undirected networks with edge costs that satisfy the triangle inequality. Let @math denote the number of nodes. We present an @math -approximation algorithm for a generalization of the metric-cost subset @math -node-connectivity problem. Our approximation guarantee is proved via lower bounds that apply to the simple edge-connectivity version of the problem, where the requirements are for edge-disjoint paths rather than for openly node-disjoint paths. A corollary is that, for metric costs and for each @math , there exists a @math -node connected graph whose cost is within a factor of @math of the cost of any simple @math -edge connected graph. Based on our @math -approximation algorithm, we present an @math -approximation algorithm for the metric-cost node-connectivity survivable network design problem, where @math denotes the maximum requirement over all pairs of nodes. Our results contrast with the case of edge costs of 0 or 1, where Kortsarz, Krauthgamer, and Lee. [SIAM J. Comput., 33 (2004), pp. 704-720] recently proved, assuming NP @math DTIME( @math ), a hardness-of-approximation lower bound of @math for the subset @math -node-connectivity problem, where @math denotes a small positive number. In this paper we show a new way of constructing deterministic polynomial-time approximation algorithms for computing complex-valued evaluations of a large class of graph polynomials on bounded degree graphs. In particular, our approach works for the Tutte polynomial and independence polynomial, as well as partition functions of complex-valued spin and edge-coloring models. More specifically, we define a large class of graph polynomials @math and show that if @math and there is a disk @math centered at zero in the complex plane such that @math does not vanish on @math for all bounded degree graphs @math , then for each @math in the interior of @math there exists a deterministic polynomial-time approximation algorithm for evaluating @math at @math . This gives an explicit connection between absence of zeros of graph polynomials and the existence of efficient approximation algorithms, allowing us to show new relationships between well-known conjectures. Our work builds on a recent line of work initiated b... Index Coding has received considerable attention recently motivated in part by real-world applications and in part by its connection to Network Coding. The basic setting of Index Coding encodes the problem input as an undirected graph and the fundamental parameter is the broadcast rate @math , the average communication cost per bit for sufficiently long messages (i.e. the non-linear vector capacity). Recent nontrivial bounds on @math were derived from the study of other Index Coding capacities (e.g. the scalar capacity @math ) by Bar- (2006), Lubetzky and Stav (2007) and (2008). However, these indirect bounds shed little light on the behavior of @math : there was no known polynomial-time algorithm for approximating @math in a general network to within a nontrivial (i.e. @math ) factor, and the exact value of @math remained unknown for any graph where Index Coding is nontrivial. Our main contribution is a direct information-theoretic analysis of the broadcast rate @math using linear programs, in contrast to previous approaches that compared @math with graph-theoretic parameters. This allows us to resolve the aforementioned two open questions. We provide a polynomial-time algorithm with a nontrivial approximation ratio for computing @math in a general network along with a polynomial-time decision procedure for recognizing instances with @math . In addition, we pinpoint @math precisely for various classes of graphs (e.g. for various Cayley graphs of cyclic groups) thereby simultaneously improving the previously known upper and lower bounds for these graphs. Via this approach we construct graphs where the difference between @math and its trivial lower bound is linear in the number of vertices and ones where @math is uniformly bounded while its upper bound derived from the naive encoding scheme is polynomially worse. Let @math be a @math -regular triangle-free graph with @math edges. We present an algorithm which finds a cut in @math with at least @math edges in expectation, improving upon Shearer's classic result. In particular, this implies that any @math -regular triangle-free graph has a cut of at least this size, and thus, we obtain a new lower bound for the maximum number of edges in a bipartite subgraph of @math . Our algorithm is simpler than Shearer's classic algorithm and it can be interpreted as a very efficient randomised distributed (local) algorithm : each node needs to produce only one random bit, and the algorithm runs in one round. The randomised algorithm itself was discovered using computational techniques . We show that for any fixed @math , there exists a weighted neighbourhood graph @math such that there is a one-to-one correspondence between heavy cuts of @math and randomised local algorithms that find large cuts in any @math -regular input graph. This turns out to be a useful tool for analysing the existence of cuts in @math -regular graphs: we can compute the optimal cut of @math to attain a lower bound on the maximum cut size of any @math -regular triangle-free graph. In the distributed all-pairs shortest paths problem (APSP), every node in the weighted undirected distributed network (the CONGEST model) needs to know the distance from every other node using least number of communication rounds (typically called time complexity ). The problem admits @math -approximation @math -time algorithm and a nearly-tight @math lower bound [Nanongkai, STOC'14; Lenzen and Patt-Shamir PODC'15] @math , @math and @math hide polylogarithmic factors. Note that the lower bounds also hold even in the unweighted case and in the weighted case with polynomial approximation ratios LenzenP_podc13,HolzerW12,PelegRT12,Nanongkai-STOC14 . . For the exact case, Elkin [STOC'17] presented an @math time bound, which was later improved to @math [Huang, Nanongkai, Saranurak FOCS'17]. It was shown that any super-linear lower bound (in @math ) requires a new technique [Censor-Hillel, Khoury, Paz, DISC'17], but otherwise it remained widely open whether there exists a @math -time algorithm for the exact case, which would match the best possible approximation algorithm. This paper resolves this question positively: we present a randomized (Las Vegas) @math -time algorithm, matching the lower bound up to polylogarithmic factors. Like the previous @math bound, our result works for directed graphs with zero (and even negative) edge weights. In addition to the improved running time, our algorithm works in a more general setting than that required by the previous @math bound; in our setting (i) the communication is only along edge directions (as opposed to bidirectional), and (ii) edge weights are arbitrary (as opposed to integers in 1, 2, ... poly(n) ). ... We show that randomization can lead to significant improvements for a few fundamental problems in distributed tracking. Our basis is the count-tracking problem, where there are @math players, each holding a counter @math that gets incremented over time, and the goal is to track an @math -approximation of their sum @math continuously at all times, using minimum communication. While the deterministic communication complexity of the problem is @math , where @math is the final value of @math when the tracking finishes, we show that with randomization, the communication cost can be reduced to @math . Our algorithm is simple and uses only O(1) space at each player, while the lower bound holds even assuming each player has infinite computing power. Then, we extend our techniques to two related distributed tracking problems: frequency-tracking and rank-tracking , and obtain similar improvements over previous deterministic algorithms. Both problems are of central importance in large data monitoring and analysis, and have been extensively studied in the literature. By prior work, there is a distributed graph algorithm that finds a maximal fractional matching (maximal edge packing) in @math O(Δ) rounds, independently of @math n; here @math Δ is the maximum degree of the graph and @math n is the number of nodes in the graph. We show that this is optimal: there is no distributed algorithm that finds a maximal fractional matching in @math o(Δ) rounds, independently of @math n. Our work gives the first linear-in- @math Δ lower bound for a natural graph problem in the standard @math LOCAL model of distributed computing--prior lower bounds for a wide range of graph problems have been at best logarithmic in @math Δ. We resolve several fundamental questions in the area of distributed functional monitoring, initiated by Cormode, Muthukrishnan, and Yi (SODA, 2008). In this model there are @math sites each tracking their input and communicating with a central coordinator that continuously maintain an approximate output to a function @math computed over the union of the inputs. The goal is to minimize the communication. We show the randomized communication complexity of estimating the number of distinct elements up to a @math factor is @math , improving the previous @math bound and matching known upper bounds up to a logarithmic factor. For the @math -th frequency moment @math , @math , we improve the previous @math communication bound to @math . We obtain similar improvements for heavy hitters, empirical entropy, and other problems. We also show that we can estimate @math , for any @math , using @math communication. This greatly improves upon the previous @math bound of Cormode, Muthukrishnan, and Yi for general @math , and their @math bound for @math . For @math , our bound resolves their main open question. Our lower bounds are based on new direct sum theorems for approximate majority, and yield significant improvements to problems in the data stream model, improving the bound for estimating @math in @math passes from @math to @math , giving the first bound for estimating @math in @math passes of @math bits of space that does not use the gap-hamming problem. Let @math be a tree space (or tree network) represented by a weighted tree with @math vertices, and @math be a set of @math stochastic points in @math , each of which has a fixed location with an independent existence probability. We investigate two fundamental problems under such a stochastic setting, the closest-pair problem and the nearest-neighbor search. For the former, we study the computation of the @math -threshold probability and the expectation of the closest-pair distance of a realization of @math . We propose the first algorithm to compute the @math -threshold probability in @math time for any given threshold @math , which immediately results in an @math -time algorithm for computing the expected closest-pair distance. Based on this, we further show that one can compute a @math -approximation for the expected closest-pair distance in @math time, by arguing that the expected closest-pair distance can be approximated via @math threshold probability queries. For the latter, we study the @math most-likely nearest-neighbor search ( @math -LNN) via a notion called @math most-likely Voronoi Diagram ( @math -LVD). We show that the size of the @math -LVD @math of @math on @math is bounded by @math if the existence probabilities of the points in @math are constant-far from 0. Furthermore, we establish an @math average-case upper bound for the size of @math , by regarding the existence probabilities as i.i.d. random variables drawn from some fixed distribution. Our results imply the existence of an LVD data structure which answers @math -LNN queries in @math time using average-case @math space, and worst-case @math space if the existence probabilities are constant-far from 0. Finally, we also give an @math -time algorithm to construct the LVD data structure. We consider the problem of finding a minimum edge cost subgraph of a graph satisfying both given node-connectivity requirements and degree upper bounds on nodes. We present an iterative rounding algorithm of the biset linear programming relaxation for this problem. For directed graphs and @math -out-connectivity requirements from a root, our algorithm computes a solution that is a 2-approximation on the cost, and the degree of each node @math in the solution is at most @math , where @math is the degree upper bound on @math . For undirected graphs and element-connectivity requirements with maximum connectivity requirement @math , our algorithm computes a solution that is a @math -approximation on the cost, and the degree of each node @math in the solution is at most @math . These ratios improve the previous @math -approximation on the cost and @math -approximation on the degrees. Our algorithms can be used to improve approximation ratios for other node-connectivity problems such as undirected $k... The 3SUM problem is to decide, given a set of @math real numbers, whether any three sum to zero. It is widely conjectured that a trivial @math -time algorithm is optimal and over the years the consequences of this conjecture have been revealed. This 3SUM conjecture implies @math lower bounds on numerous problems in computational geometry and a variant of the conjecture implies strong lower bounds on triangle enumeration, dynamic graph algorithms, and string matching data structures. In this paper we refute the 3SUM conjecture. We prove that the decision tree complexity of 3SUM is @math and give two subquadratic 3SUM algorithms, a deterministic one running in @math time and a randomized one running in @math time with high probability. Our results lead directly to improved bounds for @math -variate linear degeneracy testing for all odd @math . The problem is to decide, given a linear function @math and a set @math , whether @math . We show the decision tree complexity of this problem is @math . Finally, we give a subcubic algorithm for a generalization of the @math -product over real-valued matrices and apply it to the problem of finding zero-weight triangles in weighted graphs. We give a depth- @math decision tree for this problem, as well as an algorithm running in time @math . For any real number @math , we nearly completely characterize the space complexity of estimating @math for @math matrices @math in which each row and each column has @math non-zero entries and whose entries are presented one at a time in a data stream model. Here the @math are the singular values of @math , and when @math , @math is the @math -th power of the Schatten @math -norm. We show that when @math is not an even integer, to obtain a @math -approximation to @math with constant probability, any @math -pass algorithm requires @math bits of space, where @math as @math and @math is a constant independent of @math . However, when @math is an even integer, we give an upper bound of @math bits of space, which holds even in the turnstile data stream model. The latter is optimal up to @math factors. Our results considerably strengthen lower bounds in previous work for arbitrary (not necessarily sparse) matrices @math : the previous best lower bound was @math for @math , @math for @math and @math for @math . We note for @math , while our lower bound for even integers is the same, for other @math in this range our lower bound is @math , which is considerably stronger than the previous @math for small enough constant @math . We obtain similar near-linear lower bounds for Ky-Fan norms, SVD entropy, eigenvalue shrinkers, and M-estimators, many of which could have been solvable in logarithmic space prior to our work. We present two new approximation algorithms for the problem of finding a k-node connected spanning subgraph (directed or undirected) of minimum cost. The best known approximation guarantees for this problem were @math for both directed and undirected graphs, and @math for undirected graphs with @math , where @math is the number of nodes in the input graph. Our first algorithm has approximation ratio @math , which is @math except for very large values of @math , namely, @math . This algorithm is based on a new result on @math -connected @math -critical graphs, which is of independent interest in the context of graph theory. Our second algorithm uses the primal-dual method and has approximation ratio @math for all values of @math . Combining these two gives an algorithm with approximation ratio @math , which asymptotically improves the best known approximation guarantee for directed graphs for all values of @math , and for undirected graphs for @math . Moreover, this is the first algorithm that has an approximation guarantee better than @math for all values of @math . Our approximation ratio also provides an upper bound on the integrality gap of the standard LP-relaxation.