We study distributed algorithms that find a maximal matching in an anonymous, edge-coloured graph. If the edges are properly coloured with k colours, there is a trivial greedy algorithm that finds a maximal matching in k-1 synchronous communication rounds. The present work shows that the greedy algorithm is optimal in the general case: if A is a deterministic distributed algorithm that finds a maximal matching in anonymous, k-edge-coloured graphs, then there is a worst-case input in which the running time of A is at least k1 rounds. If we focus on graphs of maximum degree Δ, it is known that a maximal matching can be found in O(Δ+ log* k) rounds, and prior work implies a lower bound of Ω(polylog(Δ) + log* k) rounds. Our work closes the gap between upper and lower bounds: the complexity is Θ(Δ+ log* k) rounds. To our knowledge, this is the first linear-in-Δ lower bound for the distributed complexity of a classical graph problem.
It is easy to come up with an artificial problem with the complexity of @math , but so far no such tight results are known for classical graph problems such as maximal matchings. The lower-bound result by Kuhn and Wattenhofer @cite_3 comes close, but it only applies to a restricted family of algorithms.
@cite_3
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Symmetry-breaking problems are among the most well studied in the field of distributed computing and yet the most fundamental questions about their complexity remain open. In this article we work in the LOCAL model (where the input graph and underlying distributed network are identical) and study the randomized complexity of four fundamental symmetry-breaking problems on graphs: computing MISs (maximal independent sets), maximal matchings, vertex colorings, and ruling sets. A small sample of our results includes the following: —An MIS algorithm running in O(log2D Δ L 2√log n, and comes close to the Ω(flog Δ log log Δ lower bound of Kuhn, Moscibroda, and Wattenhofer. —A maximal matching algorithm running in O(log Δ + log 4log n) time. This is the first significant improvement to the 1986 algorithm of Israeli and Itai. Moreover, its dependence on Δ is nearly optimal. —A (Δ + 1)-coloring algorithm requiring O(log Δ + 2o(√log log n) time, improving on an O(log Δ + √log n)-time algorithm of Schneider and Wattenhofer. —A method for reducing symmetry-breaking problems in low arboricity degeneracy graphs to low-degree graphs. (Roughly speaking, the arboricity or degeneracy of a graph bounds the density of any subgraph.) Corollaries of this reduction include an O(√log n)-time maximal matching algorithm for graphs with arboricity up to 2√log n and an O(log 2 3n)-time MIS algorithm for graphs with arboricity up to 2(log n)1 3. Each of our algorithms is based on a simple but powerful technique for reducing a randomized symmetry-breaking task to a corresponding deterministic one on a poly(log n)-size graph. The Maximal Independent Set (MIS) problem is one of the basics in the study of locality in distributed graph algorithms. This paper presents an extremely simple randomized algorithm providing a near-optimal local complexity for this problem, which incidentally, when combined with some recent techniques, also leads to a near-optimal global complexity. Classical algorithms of Luby [STOC'85] and Alon, Babai and Itai [JALG'86] provide the global complexity guarantee that, with high probability, all nodes terminate after @math rounds. In contrast, our initial focus is on the local complexity, and our main contribution is to provide a very simple algorithm guaranteeing that each particular node @math terminates after @math rounds, with probability at least @math . The guarantee holds even if the randomness outside @math -hops neighborhood of @math is determined adversarially. This degree-dependency is optimal, due to a lower bound of Kuhn, Moscibroda, and Wattenhofer [PODC'04]. Interestingly, this local complexity smoothly transitions to a global complexity: by adding techniques of Barenboim, Elkin, Pettie, and Schneider [FOCS'12, arXiv: 1202.1983v3], we get a randomized MIS algorithm with a high probability global complexity of @math , where @math denotes the maximum degree. This improves over the @math result of , and gets close to the @math lower bound of Corollaries include improved algorithms for MIS in graphs of upper-bounded arboricity, or lower-bounded girth, for Ruling Sets, for MIS in the Local Computation Algorithms (LCA) model, and a faster distributed algorithm for the Lov 'asz Local Lemma. The Maximal Independent Set (MIS) problem is one of the basics in the study of locality in distributed graph algorithms. This paper presents a very simple randomized algorithm for this problem providing a near-optimal local complexity, which incidentally, when combined with some known techniques, also leads to a near-optimal global complexity. Classical MIS algorithms of Luby [STOC'85] and Alon, Babai and Itai [JALG'86] provide the global complexity guarantee that, with high probability1, all nodes terminate after O(log n) rounds. In contrast, our initial focus is on the local complexity, and our main contribution is to provide a very simple algorithm guaranteeing that each particular node v terminates after O(log deg(v) + log 1 e) rounds, with probability at least 1 -- e. The degree-dependency in this bound is optimal, due to a lower bound of Kuhn, Moscibroda, and Wattenhofer [PODC'04]. Interestingly, this local complexity smoothly transitions to a global complexity: by adding techniques of Barenboim, Elkin, Pettie, and Schneider [FOCS'12; arXiv: 1202.1983v3], we2 get an MIS algorithm with a high probability global complexity of O(log Δ) + 2O([EQUATION]), where Δ denotes the maximum degree. This improves over the O(log2 Δ) + 2O([EQUATION]) result of , and gets close to the Ω(min log Δ, [EQUATION] ) lower bound of Corollaries include improved algorithms for MIS in graphs of upper-bounded arboricity, or lower-bounded girth, for Ruling Sets, for MIS in the Local Computation Algorithms (LCA) model, and a faster distributed algorithm for the Lovasz Local Lemma. The (∆+1)-coloring problem is a fundamental symmetry breaking problem in distributed computing. We give a new randomized coloring algorithm for (∆+1)-coloring running in O(√log ∆)+ 2^O(√log log n) rounds with probability 1-1 n^Ω(1) in a graph with n nodes and maximum degree ∆. This implies that the (∆+1)-coloring problem is easier than the maximal independent set problem and the maximal matching problem, due to their lower bounds by Kuhn, Moscibroda, and Wattenhofer [PODC'04]. Our algorithm also extends to the list-coloring problem where the palette of each node contains ∆+1 colors.