Abstract
We study the problem embedding an n-point metric space into another n-point metric space while minimizing distortion. We show that there is no polynomial time algorithm to approximate the minimum distortion within a factor of Ω((logn)1/4 − δ) for any constant δ> 0, unless \(\textnormal{NP} \subseteq \textnormal{DTIME}(n^{\textnormal{poly}(\log n))})\). We give a simple reduction from the METRIC LABELING problem which was shown to be inapproximable by Chuzhoy and Naor [10].
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Arora, S.: Polynomial time approximation schemes for Euclidean Traveling Salesman and other Geometric problems. Journal of the ACM 45(5), 753–782 (1998)
Arora, S., Lund, C., Motawani, R., Sudan, M., Szegedy, M.: Proof verification and the hardness of approximation problems. Journal of the ACM 45(3), 501–555 (1998)
Arora, S., Lee, J.R., Naor, A.: Euclidean distortion and the sparsest cut. In: Proc. STOC, pp. 553–562 (2005)
Arora, S., Rao, S., Vazirani, U.V.: Expander flows, geometric embeddings and graph partitioning. In: Proc. STOC, pp. 222–231 (2004)
Arora, S., Safra, S.: Probabilistic checking of proofs: A new characterization of NP. Journal of the ACM 45(1), 70–122 (1998)
Badoiu, M., Chuzhoy, J., Indyk, P., Sidiropoulos, A.: Low-distortion embeddings of general metrics into the line. In: Proc. STOC, pp. 225–233 (2005)
Bartal, Y.: On approximating arbitrary metrices by tree metrics. In: Proc. STOC, pp. 161–168 (1998)
Bourgain, J.: On Lipschitz embeddings of finite metrics in Hilbert space. Israel Journal of Mathematics 52, 46–52 (1985)
Chekuri, C., Khanna, S., Naor, J., Zosin, L.: Approximation algorithms for the metric labeling problem via a new linear programming formulation. In: Proc. SODA, pp. 109–118 (2001)
Chuzhoy, J., Naor, J.: The hardness of Metric Labeling. In: Proc. FOCS, pp. 108–114 (2004)
Fakcharoenphol, J., Rao, S., Talwar, K.: A tight bound on approximating arbitrary metrics by tree metrics. J. Comput. Syst. Sci. 69(3), 485–497 (2004)
Indyk, P.: Algorithmic applications of low-distortion embeddings. In: Proc. FOCS, pp. 10–33 (2001)
Kleinberg, J., Tardos, E.: Approximation algorithms for classification problems with pairwise relationships: metric labeling and Markov random fields. Journal of the ACM 49, 616–630 (2002)
Kenyon, C., Rabani, Y., Sinclair, A.: Low distortion maps between point sets. In: Proc. STOC, pp. 272–280 (2004)
Papadimitriou, C.H., Safra, S.: The complexity of low-distortion embeddings between point sets. In: Proc. SODA, pp. 112–118 (2005)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2007 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Khot, S., Saket, R. (2007). Hardness of Embedding Metric Spaces of Equal Size. In: Charikar, M., Jansen, K., Reingold, O., Rolim, J.D.P. (eds) Approximation, Randomization, and Combinatorial Optimization. Algorithms and Techniques. APPROX RANDOM 2007 2007. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 4627. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-74208-1_16
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-74208-1_16
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-74207-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-74208-1
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)