Multi-Dimensional Stable Roommates in 2-Dimensional Euclidean Space

Abstract

We investigate the Euclidean 𝖽-Dimensional Stable Roommates problem, which asks whether a given set V of 𝖽⋅ n points from the 2-dimensional Euclidean space can be partitioned into n disjoint (unordered) subsets Π = {V₁,…,V_{n}} with |V_i| = 𝖽 for each V_i ∈ Π such that Π is {stable}. Here, {stability} means that no point subset W ⊆ V is blocking Π, and W is said to be {blocking} Π if |W| = 𝖽 such that ∑_{w' ∈ W}δ(w,w') < ∑_{v ∈ Π(w)}δ(w,v) holds for each point w ∈ W, where Π(w) denotes the subset V_i ∈ Π which contains w and δ(a,b) denotes the Euclidean distance between points a and b. Complementing the existing known polynomial-time result for 𝖽 = 2, we show that such polynomial-time algorithms cannot exist for any fixed number 𝖽 ≥ 3 unless P=NP. Our result for 𝖽 = 3 answers a decade-long open question in the theory of Stable Matching and Hedonic Games [Iwama et al., 2007; Arkin et al., 2009; Vladimir G. Deineko and Gerhard J. Woeginger, 2013; Vladimir G. Deineko and Gerhard J. Woeginger, 2013; David F. Manlove, 2013].