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oai:drops-oai.dagstuhl.de:20244 2024-07-02T07:52:53Z ddc:004 open_access

On the Space Usage of Approximate Distance Oracles with Sub-2 Stretch Kopelowitz, Tsvi Korin, Ariel Roditty, Liam Graph algorithms Approximate distance oracle data structures shortest path For an undirected unweighted graph G = (V,E) with n vertices and m edges, let d(u,v) denote the distance from u ∈ V to v ∈ V in G. An (α,β)-stretch approximate distance oracle (ADO) for G is a data structure that given u,v ∈ V returns in constant (or near constant) time a value dˆ(u,v) such that d(u,v) ≤ dˆ(u,v) ≤ α⋅ d(u,v) + β, for some reals α > 1, β. Thorup and Zwick [Mikkel Thorup and Uri Zwick, 2005] showed that one cannot beat stretch 3 with subquadratic space (in terms of n) for general graphs. Pǎtraşcu and Roditty [Mihai Pǎtraşcu and Liam Roditty, 2010] showed that one can obtain stretch 2 using O(m^{1/3}n^{4/3}) space, and so if m is subquadratic in n then the space usage is also subquadratic. Moreover, Pǎtraşcu and Roditty [Mihai Pǎtraşcu and Liam Roditty, 2010] showed that one cannot beat stretch 2 with subquadratic space even for graphs where m = Õ(n), based on the set-intersection hypothesis. In this paper we explore the conditions for which an ADO can beat stretch 2 while using subquadratic space. In particular, we show that if the maximum degree in G is Δ_G ≤ O(n^{1/k-ε}) for some 0 < ε ≤ 1/k, then there exists an ADO for G that uses Õ(n^{2-(kε)/3) space and has a (2,1-k)-stretch. For k = 2 this result implies a subquadratic sub-2 stretch ADO for graphs with Δ_G ≤ O(n^{1/2-ε}). Moreover, we prove a conditional lower bound, based on the set intersection hypothesis, which states that for any positive integer k ≤ log n, obtaining a sub-(k+2)/k stretch for graphs with Δ_G = Θ(n^{1/k}) requires Ω̃(n²) space. Thus, for graphs with maximum degree Θ(n^{1/2}), obtaining a sub-2 stretch requires Ω̃(n²) space. Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik Tsvi Kopelowitz and Ariel Korin and Liam Roditty 2024 Is Part Of LIPIcs, Volume 297, 51st International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2024) InProceedings Text doc-type:ResearchArticle publishedVersion application/pdf doi:10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2024.101 urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-202443 https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2024.101 eng https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode