An Optimal Algorithm for Triangle Counting in the Stream

Abstract

We present a new algorithm for approximating the number of triangles in a graph $G$ whose edges arrive as an arbitrary order stream. If $m$ is the number of edges in $G$, $T$ the number of triangles, $\Delta_E$ the maximum number of triangles which share a single edge, and $\Delta_V$ the maximum number of triangles which share a single vertex, then our algorithm requires space: \[ \widetilde{O}\left(\frac{m}{T}\cdot \left(\Delta_E + \sqrt{\Delta_V}\right)\right) \] Taken with the $\Omega\left(\frac{m \Delta_E}{T}\right)$ lower bound of Braverman, Ostrovsky, and Vilenchik (ICALP 2013), and the $\Omega\left( \frac{m \sqrt{\Delta_V}}{T}\right)$ lower bound of Kallaugher and Price (SODA 2017), our algorithm is optimal up to log factors, resolving the complexity of a classic problem in graph streaming.