null
(Ed.)
Given a weighted planar bipartite graph G ( A ∪ B , E ) where each edge has an integer edge cost, we give an Õ( n 4/3 log nC ) time algorithm to compute minimum-cost perfect matching; here C is the maximum edge cost in the graph. The previous best-known planarity exploiting algorithm has a running time of O ( n 3/2 log n ) and is achieved by using planar separators (Lipton and Tarjan ’80). Our algorithm is based on the bit-scaling paradigm (Gabow and Tarjan ’89). For each scale, our algorithm first executes O ( n 1/3 ) iterations of Gabow and Tarjan’s algorithm in O ( n 4/3 ) time leaving only O ( n 2/3 ) vertices unmatched. Next, it constructs a compressed residual graph H with O ( n 2/3 ) vertices and O ( n ) edges. This is achieved by using an r -division of the planar graph G with r = n 2/3 . For each partition of the r -division, there is an edge between two vertices of H if and only if they are connected by a directed path inside the partition. Using existing efficient shortest-path data structures, the remaining O ( n 2/3 ) vertices are matched by iteratively computing a minimum-cost augmenting path, each taking Õ( n 2/3 ) time. Augmentation changes the residual graph, so the algorithm updates the compressed representation for each partition affected by the change in Õ( n 2/3 ) time. We bound the total number of affected partitions over all the augmenting paths by O ( n 2/3 log n ). Therefore, the total time taken by the algorithm is Õ( n 4/3 ).
more »
« less