The maximum matching problem in dynamic graphs subject to edge updates (insertions and deletions) has received much attention over the last few years; a multitude of approximation/time tradeoffs were obtained, improving upon the folklore algorithm, which maintains a maximal (and hence 2-approximate) matching in O(n) worst-case update time in n-node graphs. We present the first deterministic algorithm which outperforms the folklore algorithm in terms of both approximation ratio and worst-case update time. Specifically, we give a (2-Ω(1))-approximate algorithm with O(m^{3/8}) = O(n^{3/4}) worst-case update time in n-node, m-edge graphs. For sufficiently small constant ε > 0, no deterministic (2+ε)-approximate algorithm with worst-case update time O(n^{0.99}) was known. Our second result is the first deterministic (2+ε)-approximate weighted matching algorithm with O_ε(1)⋅ O(∜{m}) = O_ε(1)⋅ O(√n) worst-case update time. Neither of our results were previously known to be achievable by a randomized algorithm against an adaptive adversary. Our main technical contributions are threefold: first, we characterize the tight cases for kernels, which are the well-studied matching sparsifiers underlying much of the (2+ε)-approximate dynamic matching literature. This characterization, together with multiple ideas - old and new - underlies our result for breaking the approximation barrier of 2. Our second technical contribution is the first example of a dynamic matching algorithm whose running time is improved due to improving the recourse of other dynamic matching algorithms. Finally, we show how to use dynamic bipartite matching algorithms as black-box subroutines for dynamic matching in general graphs without incurring the natural 3/2 factor in the approximation ratio which such approaches naturally incur (reminiscent of the integrality gap of the fractional matching polytope in general graphs).
@InProceedings{roghani_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2022.111, author = {Roghani, Mohammad and Saberi, Amin and Wajc, David}, title = {{Beating the Folklore Algorithm for Dynamic Matching}}, booktitle = {13th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2022)}, pages = {111:1--111:23}, series = {Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)}, ISBN = {978-3-95977-217-4}, ISSN = {1868-8969}, year = {2022}, volume = {215}, editor = {Braverman, Mark}, publisher = {Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik}, address = {Dagstuhl, Germany}, URL = {https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2022.111}, URN = {urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-157077}, doi = {10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2022.111}, annote = {Keywords: dynamic matching, dynamic graph algorithms, sublinear algorithms} }
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