Communication Efficient Coresets for Maximum Matching

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new randomized composable coreset for bipartite matching that achieves nearly a 1/2 approximation with minimal communication, improving previous bounds and approaching the theoretical limit.

Contribution

It presents a novel matching skeleton coreset construction that significantly improves approximation ratios with low communication costs.

Findings

Achieves a $1/2 - o(1)$ approximation with at most $n-1$ words per player.

Provides an upper bound of $2/3 + o(1)$ on the approximation ratio.

Improves upon previous coreset constructions for bipartite matching.

Abstract

In this paper we revisit the problem of constructing randomized composable coresets for bipartite matching. In this problem the input graph is randomly partitioned across $k$ players, each of which sends a single message to a coordinator, who then must output a good approximation to the maximum matching in the input graph. Assadi and Khanna gave the first such coreset, achieving a $1/9$-approximation by having every player send a maximum matching, i.e. at most $n/2$ words per player. The approximation factor was improved to $1/3$ by Bernstein et al. In this paper, we show that the matching skeleton construction of Goel, Kapralov and Khanna, which is a carefully chosen (fractional) matching, is a randomized composable coreset that achieves a $1/2-o(1)$ approximation using at most $n-1$ words of communication per player. We also show an upper bound of $2/3+o(1)$ on the approximation ratio achieved by this coreset.