A Second Look at Counting Triangles in Graph Streams (revised)

Abstract

In this paper we present improved results on the problem of counting triangles in edge streamed graphs. For graphs with $m$ edges and at least $T$ triangles, we show that an extra look over the stream yields a two-pass treaming algorithm that uses $O(\frac{m}{\eps^{2.5}\sqrt{T}}\polylog(m))$ space and outputs a $(1+\eps)$ approximation of the number of triangles in the graph. This improves upon the two-pass streaming tester of Braverman, Ostrovsky and Vilenchik, ICALP 2013, which distinguishes between triangle-free graphs and graphs with at least $T$ triangle using $O(\frac{m}{T^{1/3}})$ space. Also, in terms of dependence on $T$, we show that more passes would not lead to a better space bound. In other words, we prove there is no constant pass streaming algorithm that distinguishes between triangle-free graphs from graphs with at least $T$ triangles using $O(\frac{m}{T^{1/2+\rho}})$ space for any constant $\rho \ge 0$.