Random-Order Contention Resolution via Continuous Induction: Tightness for Bipartite Matching under Vertex Arrivals

We introduce a new approach for designing Random-order Contention Resolution Schemes (RCRS’s) via exact solution in continuous time. Given a function c(y):[0,1] → [0,1], we show how to select each element which arrives at time y ∈ [0,1] with probability exactly c(y). We provide a rigorous algorithmic framework for achieving this, which discretizes the time interval and also needs to sample its past execution to ensure these exact selection probabilities. We showcase our framework in the context of online contention resolution schemes for matching with random-order vertex arrivals. For bipartite graphs with two-sided arrivals, we design a (1+e−2)/2 ≈ 0.567-selectable RCRS, which we also show to be tight. Next, we show that the presence of short odd-length cycles is the only barrier to attaining a (tight) (1+e−2)/2-selectable RCRS on general graphs. By generalizing our bipartite RCRS, we design an RCRS for graphs with odd-length girth g which is (1+ e−2)/2-selectable as g → ∞. This convergence happens very rapidly: for triangle-free graphs (i.e., g ≥ 5), we attain a 121/240 + 7/16 e2 ≈ 0.563-selectable RCRS. Finally, for general graphs we improve on the 8/15 ≈ 0.533-selectable RCRS of (Fu et al., 2021) and design an RCRS which is at least 0.535-selectable. Due to the reduction of (Ezra et al., 2020), our bounds yield a 0.535-competitive (respectively, (1+ e−2)/2-competitive) algorithm for prophet secretary matching on general (respectively, bipartite) graphs under vertex arrivals.