2019 IEEE 60th Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science (FOCS) Fully Dynamic Maximal Independent Set in Polylogarithmic Update Time Soheil Behnezhad∗, Mahsa Derakhshan∗, MohammadTaghi Hajiaghayi∗, Cliff Stein† and Madhu Sudan‡ ∗University of Maryland {soheil,mahsa,hajiagha}@cs.umd.edu †Columbia University
[email protected] ‡Harvard University
[email protected] Abstract— We present the first algorithm for maintaining a time. As such, one can trivially maintain MIS by recomput- maximal independent set (MIS) of a fully dynamic graph—which ing it from scratch after each update, in O(m) time. In a undergoes both edge insertions and deletions—in polylogarith- pioneering work, Censor-Hillel, Haramaty, and Karnin [15] mic time. Our algorithm is randomized and, per update, takes 2 2 O(log Δ · log n) expected time. Furthermore, the algorithm presented a round-efficient randomized algorithm for MIS in 2 4 can be adjusted to have O(log Δ · log n) worst-case update- dynamic distributed networks. Implementing the algorithm time with high probability. Here, n denotes the number of of [15] in the sequential setting—the focus of this paper— vertices and Δ is the maximum degree in the graph. requires Ω(Δ) update-time (see [15, Section 6]) where Δ The MIS problem in fully dynamic graphs has attracted sig- is the maximum-degree in the graph which can be as large nificant attention after a breakthrough result of Assadi, Onak, as Ω(n) or even Ω(m) for sparse graphs. Improving this Schieber, and Solomon [STOC’18] who presented an algorithm bound was one of the major problems the authors left 3/4 with O(m ) update-time (and thus broke the natural Ω(m) open.