Layered Heaps Beating Standard and Fibonacci Heaps in Practice

TL;DR

This paper introduces a layered heap data structure that outperforms both standard binary and Fibonacci heaps in practical applications, offering faster run times while maintaining favorable theoretical properties.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel layered heap structure that improves practical performance over existing heaps and has better asymptotic insert times than binary heaps.

Findings

Layered heaps outperform standard binary and Fibonacci heaps in practice.

Layered heaps have faster insertion times than binary heaps.

Optimal performance occurs with a recursion depth of 1, akin to a heap of heaps.

Abstract

We consider the classic problem of designing heaps. Standard binary heaps run faster in practice than Fibonacci heaps but have worse time guarantees. Here we present a new type of heap, a layered heap, that runs faster in practice than both standard binary and Fibonacci heaps, but has asymptotic insert times better than that of binary heaps. Our heap is defined recursively and maximum run time speed up occurs when a recursion depth of 1 is used, i.e. a heap of heaps.