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Title: Sampling Random Spanning Trees Faster than Matrix Multiplication
We present an algorithm that, with high probability, generates a random spanning tree from an edge-weighted undirected graph in \Otil(n^{5/3 }m^{1/3}) time\footnote{The \Otil(\cdot) notation hides \poly(\log n) factors}. The tree is sampled from a distribution where the probability of each tree is proportional to the product of its edge weights. This improves upon the previous best algorithm due to Colbourn et al. that runs in matrix multiplication time, O(n^\omega). For the special case of unweighted graphs, this improves upon the best previously known running time of \tilde{O}(\min\{n^{\omega},m\sqrt{n},m^{4/3}\}) for m >> n^{7/4} (Colbourn et al. '96, Kelner-Madry '09, Madry et al. '15). The effective resistance metric is essential to our algorithm, as in the work of Madry et al., but we eschew determinant-based and random walk-based techniques used by previous algorithms. Instead, our algorithm is based on Gaussian elimination, and the fact that effective resistance is preserved in the graph resulting from eliminating a subset of vertices (called a Schur complement). As part of our algorithm, we show how to compute \eps-approximate effective resistances for a set SS of vertex pairs via approximate Schur complements in \Otil(m+(n + |S|)\eps^{-2}) time, without using the Johnson-Lindenstrauss lemma which requires \Otil( \min\{(m + |S|)\eps^{-2}, m+n\eps^{-4} +|S|\eps^{-2}\}) time. We combine this approximation procedure with an error correction procedure for handing edges where our estimate isn't sufficiently accurate.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1650733
NSF-PAR ID:
10026353
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Proceedings of the annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing
ISSN:
0737-8017
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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    Certifying a Quantified Boolean Formula is true can be done in Merlin–Arthur time$$2^{4n/5}\cdot \textrm{poly}(n)$$24n/5·poly(n). Previously, the only nontrivial result known along these lines was an Arthur–Merlin–Arthur protocol (where Merlin’s proof depends on some of Arthur’s coins) running in$$2^{2n/3}\cdot \textrm{poly}(n)$$22n/3·poly(n)time.

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