Search arXiv⌕ Search
Home/Archive/arXiv

arXiv · 2609.20939

Prophet Inequalities and Online Contention Resolution for Matchoids

Calum MacRury·Pranav Nuti·Jan Vondrák
View original source ↗Read source document ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

In the classical prophet inequality, an algorithm observes a sequence of random variables with known distributions in an online fashion, and it must select one of the random variables with the goal of maximizing the expected value of its selection. The performance of the algorithm is compared to an \textit{omniscient prophet} who observes all of the random variables before having to make its selection. Combinatorial extensions of the classical prophet inequality in which the algorithm gets to pick a subset of the random variables (constrained to belong to some family of feasible sets) have been studied extensively. We study prophet inequalities with a $k$-matchoid constraint (a common generalization of a $k$-matroid intersection constraint and a $k$-bounded hypergraph matching constraint) in two common online arrival models. We give guarantees with respect to the \textit{ex-ante} fractional relaxation of the omniscient prophet, obtaining an ex-ante competitive ratio of $\frac{1}{k+1}$ in the adversarial order case, and $\frac{1-e^{-k}}{k}$ in the random order case. Using the duality framework of Lee and Singla \cite{Lee2018}, this also yields online contention resolution schemes in these settings. Our adversarial-order prophet inequality can be viewed as a generalization of a recent $\frac12$-competitive matroid prophet inequality by Kalantarzadeh and Pashkovich, 2026. This generalization introduces a new framework: coordinated weighted principal partitions across multiple matroids. Our random-order prophet inequality is a generalization of the $k=1$ matroid case of Lee and Singla, 2018. The two results improve previously known competitive ratios for $k$-matroid intersection, which were $\frac{1}{(e+o(1))k}$ and $\frac{1}{k+1}$, respectively.

Explore related subjects

cs.DS

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Calum MacRury, Pranav Nuti, Jan Vondrák. 2026-09-17. Prophet Inequalities and Online Contention Resolution for Matchoids. https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.20939

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

arXiv2026

Beyond Kruskal: Polynomial-Time Tensor Decomposition under the Lovitz-Petrov Condition

Identifiability criteria certify that a given tensor decomposition is a unique rank decomposition. Kruskal's classical condition is one of the best-known deterministic criteria for identifiability. However, no polynomial-time decomposition algorithm is known under the Kruskal condition, and verifying the condition itself is NP-hard. Lovitz and Petrov introduced a strictly more general identifiability condition which, in contrast, is polynomial-time verifiable, but no polynomial-time decomposition algorithm was previously known under this condition. We give a polynomial-time algorithm for tensor decomposition under the Lovitz--Petrov condition. Moreover, combining our algorithm with polynomial-time verification of the Lovitz--Petrov condition yields an efficient end-to-end certification procedure: after computing a decomposition, one can deterministically certify in polynomial time that it is unique and therefore of minimum rank. This contrasts with an arbitrary tensor decomposition, which certifies only an upper bound on the tensor rank, while determining tensor rank is NP-hard in general.

cs.DS↗
arXiv2026

Poisson Exchange Beyond Submodularity: Effective Approximation Algorithms for Offline and Online Subset Selection over Matroids

Over the past decade, a growing body of research has shown that $γ$-weak submodularity broadly arises in numerous subset selection tasks, including feature selection, neural network pruning, and video summarization. Despite its prevalence, maximizing a $γ$-weakly submodular function subject to a general matroid constraint remains challenging. To date, the only known approximation guarantee is the conservative $(1+1/γ)^{-2}$ factor established by \citet{chen2018weakly}. To improve upon this result, this paper proposes a novel algorithm called \MGPE, which repeatedly performs maximum-gain local exchanges through careful control of a non-homogeneous Poisson clock, and proves that this \MGPE\ can attain an approximation ratio arbitrarily close to $ρ_γ=1-\left(γ/(2-γ)\right)^{ \frac{γ^2}{2(1-γ)} }$. In sharp contrast to the previous guarantee, our obtained factor $ρ_γ$ not only strictly improves upon $(1+1/γ)^{-2}$ for every $γ\in(0,1]$, but also can asymptotically approach the optimal $(1-1/e)$-approximation for submodular maximization as $γ\to1$. Furthermore, we surprisingly find that when the matroid constraint reduces to a cardinality or the objective satisfies the stronger notion of $α$-weak DR-submodularity, \MGPE\ can automatically recover the tight approximation ratios of $1-e^{-γ}$ and $1-e^{-α}$, respectively. Here, $α\in(0,1]$ denotes the DR ratio.

cs.DS↗
arXiv2026

Approximating Prize-Collecting TSP below 1.556

The prize-collecting traveling salesperson problem is a variant of the metric traveling salesperson problem in which vertices may be left unvisited by paying their associated penalties. The objective is to minimize the length of the tour plus the total penalty of the unvisited vertices. Blauth, Klein, and Nägele gave the previously best-known LP-relative $1.599$-approximation. We show that a simpler version of their algorithm, obtained by omitting the splitting-off preprocessing before the tree decomposition, has an LP-relative approximation ratio of $1.555761$. The improvement comes entirely from a new analysis of the parity-correction step: a simple analysis already gives $1.56$, and the stated factor follows from a numerical parameter search with exact verification.

cs.DS↗