Lasserre Hierarchy, Higher Eigenvalues, and Approximation Schemes for Quadratic Integer Programming with PSD Objectives
April 27, 2011
ABSTRACT:
We present an approximation scheme for optimizing certain Quadratic
Integer Programming problems with positive semidefinite objective
functions and global linear constraints. This framework includes well
known graph problems such as Uniform sparsest cut, Minimum graph
bisection, and Small Set expansion, as well as the Unique Games problem.
These problems are notorious for the existence of huge gaps between the
known algorithmic results and NP-hardness results. Our algorithm is
based on rounding semidefinite programs from the Lasserre hierarchy, and
the analysis uses bounds for low-rank approximations of a matrix in
Frobenius norm using columns of the matrix.
For all the above graph problems, we give an algorithm running in time $n^{O(r/\eps^2)}$ with approximation ratio $\frac{1+\eps}{\min\{1,\lambda_r\}}$, where $\lambda_r$ is the $r$'th smallest eigenvalue of the normalized graph Laplacian $\Lnorm$. In the case of graph bisection and small set expansion, the number of vertices in the cut is within lower-order terms of the stipulated bound. Our results imply $(1+O(\eps))$ factor approximation in time $n^{O(r^\ast)}$ where $r^\ast$ is the number of eigenvalues of $\Lnorm$ smaller $1-\eps$. This perhaps gives some indication as to why even showing mere APX-hardness for these problems has been elusive, since the reduction must produce graphs with a slowly growing spectrum (and classes like planar graphs which are known to have such a spectral property often admit good algorithms owing to their nice structure).
For Unique Games, we give a factor $(1+\frac{2+\eps}{\lambda_r})$ approximation for minimizing the number of unsatisfied constraints in $n^{O(r/\eps)}$ time. This improves an earlier bound for solving Unique Games on expanders, and also shows that Lasserre SDPs are powerful enough to solve well-known integrality gap instances for the basic SDP. We also give an algorithm for independent sets in graphs that performs well when the Laplacian does not have too many eigenvalues bigger than $1+o(1)$.
Joint work with Venkatesan Guruswami.
For all the above graph problems, we give an algorithm running in time $n^{O(r/\eps^2)}$ with approximation ratio $\frac{1+\eps}{\min\{1,\lambda_r\}}$, where $\lambda_r$ is the $r$'th smallest eigenvalue of the normalized graph Laplacian $\Lnorm$. In the case of graph bisection and small set expansion, the number of vertices in the cut is within lower-order terms of the stipulated bound. Our results imply $(1+O(\eps))$ factor approximation in time $n^{O(r^\ast)}$ where $r^\ast$ is the number of eigenvalues of $\Lnorm$ smaller $1-\eps$. This perhaps gives some indication as to why even showing mere APX-hardness for these problems has been elusive, since the reduction must produce graphs with a slowly growing spectrum (and classes like planar graphs which are known to have such a spectral property often admit good algorithms owing to their nice structure).
For Unique Games, we give a factor $(1+\frac{2+\eps}{\lambda_r})$ approximation for minimizing the number of unsatisfied constraints in $n^{O(r/\eps)}$ time. This improves an earlier bound for solving Unique Games on expanders, and also shows that Lasserre SDPs are powerful enough to solve well-known integrality gap instances for the basic SDP. We also give an algorithm for independent sets in graphs that performs well when the Laplacian does not have too many eigenvalues bigger than $1+o(1)$.
Joint work with Venkatesan Guruswami.