Improved Local Computation Algorithms for Greedy Set Cover via Retroactive Updates

In this work, we focus on designing an efficient Local Computation Algorithm (LCA) for the set cover problem, which is a core optimization task. The state-of-the-art LCA for computing O(logΔ)-approximate set cover, developed by Grunau, Mitrović, Rubinfeld, and Vakilian [SODA ’20], achieves query complexity of ΔO(logΔ) · fO(logΔ · (loglogΔ + loglogf)), where Δ is the maximum set size, and f is the maximum frequency of any element in sets. We present a new LCA that solves this problem using fO(logΔ) queries. Specifically, for instances where f = poly logΔ, our algorithm improves the query complexity from ΔO(logΔ) to ΔO(loglogΔ). Our central technical contribution in designing LCAs is to aggressively sparsify the input instance to allow for retroactive updates. Namely, our main LCA sometimes “corrects” decisions it made in the previous recursive LCA calls. It enables us to achieve stronger concentration guarantees, which in turn allows for more efficient and “sparser” LCA execution. We believe that this technique will be of independent interest.