We study sublinear time algorithms for the traveling salesman problem (TSP). First, we focus on the closely related maximum path cover problem, which asks for a collection of vertex disjoint paths that include the maximum number of edges. We show that for any fixed ε > 0, there is an algorithm that (1/2 - ε)-approximates the maximum path cover size of an n-vertex graph in Õ(n) time. This improves upon a (3/8-ε)-approximate Õ(n √n)-time algorithm of Chen, Kannan, and Khanna [ICALP'20]. Equipped with our path cover algorithm, we give an Õ(n) time algorithm that estimates the cost of (1,2)-TSP within a factor of (1.5+ε) which is an improvement over a folklore (1.75 + ε)-approximate Õ(n)-time algorithm, as well as a (1.625+ε)-approximate Õ(n√n)-time algorithm of [CHK ICALP'20]. For graphic TSP, we present an Õ(n) algorithm that estimates the cost of graphic TSP within a factor of 1.83 which is an improvement over a 1.92-approximate Õ(n) time algorithm due to [CHK ICALP'20, Behnezhad FOCS'21]. We show that the approximation can be further improved to 1.66 using n^{2-Ω(1)} time. All of our Õ(n) time algorithms are information-theoretically time-optimal up to polylog n factors. Additionally, we show that our approximation guarantees for path cover and (1,2)-TSP hit a natural barrier: We show better approximations require better sublinear time algorithms for the well-studied maximum matching problem.
@InProceedings{behnezhad_et_al:LIPIcs.ICALP.2024.19, author = {Behnezhad, Soheil and Roghani, Mohammad and Rubinstein, Aviad and Saberi, Amin}, title = {{Sublinear Algorithms for TSP via Path Covers}}, booktitle = {51st International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2024)}, pages = {19:1--19:16}, series = {Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)}, ISBN = {978-3-95977-322-5}, ISSN = {1868-8969}, year = {2024}, volume = {297}, editor = {Bringmann, Karl and Grohe, Martin and Puppis, Gabriele and Svensson, Ola}, publisher = {Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik}, address = {Dagstuhl, Germany}, URL = {https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2024.19}, URN = {urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-201623}, doi = {10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2024.19}, annote = {Keywords: Sublinear Algorithms, Traveling Salesman Problem, Approximation Algorithm, (1, 2)-TSP, Graphic TSP} }
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