Semi-Streaming Algorithms for Hypergraph Matching

We propose two one-pass streaming algorithms for the $\mathcal{NP}$-hard hypergraph matching problem. The first algorithm stores a small subset of potential matching edges in a stack using dual variables to select edges. It has an approximation guarantee of $\frac{1}{d(1+\varepsilon)}$ and requires $\mathcal{O}((\frac{n}{\varepsilon}) \log^2{n})$ bits of memory, where $n$ is the number of vertices in the hypergraph, $d$ is the maximum number of vertices in a hyperedge, and $\epsilon > 0$ is a parameter to be chosen. The second algorithm computes, stores, and updates a single matching as the edges stream, with an approximation ratio dependent on a parameter $\alpha$. Its best approximation guarantee is $\frac{1}{(2d-1) + 2 \sqrt{d(d-1)}}$, and it requires only $\mathcal{O}(n)$ memory. We have implemented both algorithms and compared them with respect to solution quality, memory consumption, and running times on two diverse sets of hypergraphs with a non-streaming greedy and a naive streaming algorithm. Our results show that the streaming algorithms achieve much better solution quality than naive algorithms when facing adverse orderings. Furthermore, these algorithms reduce the memory required by a factor of 13 in the geometric mean on our test problems, and also outperform the offline Greedy algorithm in running time.