{"paper":{"title":"Breaking a Long-Standing Barrier: 2-$\\varepsilon$ Approximation for Steiner Forest","license":"http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/","headline":"","cross_cats":[],"primary_cat":"cs.DS","authors_text":"Ali Ahmadi, Iman Gholami, Mohammad Mahdavi, MohammadTaghi Hajiaghayi, Peyman Jabbarzade","submitted_at":"2025-04-15T17:13:48Z","abstract_excerpt":"The Steiner Forest problem, also known as the Generalized Steiner Tree problem, is a fundamental optimization problem on edge-weighted graphs where, given a set of vertex pairs, the goal is to select a minimum-cost subgraph such that each pair is connected. This problem generalizes the Steiner Tree problem, first introduced in 1811, for which the best known approximation factor is 1.39 [Byrka, Grandoni, Rothvo{\\ss}, and Sanit\\`a, 2010] (Best Paper award, STOC 2010).\n  The celebrated work of [Agrawal, Klein, and Ravi, 1989] (30-Year Test-of-Time award, STOC 2023), along with refinements by [Goe"},"claims":{"count":0,"items":[],"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"source":{"id":"2504.11398","kind":"arxiv","version":1},"verdict":{"id":null,"model_set":{},"created_at":null,"strongest_claim":"","one_line_summary":"","pipeline_version":null,"weakest_assumption":"","pith_extraction_headline":""},"integrity":{"clean":true,"summary":{"advisory":0,"critical":0,"by_detector":{},"informational":0},"endpoint":"/pith/2504.11398/integrity.json","findings":[],"available":true,"detectors_run":[],"snapshot_sha256":"c28c3603d3b5d939e8dc4c7e95fa8dfce3d595e45f758748cecf8e644a296938"},"references":{"count":0,"sample":[],"resolved_work":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}