Streaming Max-Cut in General Metrics

Abstract

Max-Cut is a fundamental combinatorial optimization problem that has been studied in various computational settings. We initiate the study of its streaming complexity in \emph{general metric spaces} with access to distance oracles. We give a $(1 + \epsilon)$-approximate algorithm for estimating the Max-Cut value in \emph{sliding-window} streams using only poly-logarithmic space. This is the first sliding-window algorithm for Max-Cut even in Euclidean spaces, and it matches a known insertion-only space bound in the special case of Euclidean spaces [Chen, Jiang, Krauthgamer, STOC'23]. In sharp contrast, we give a $\poly(n)$-space lower bound in the \emph{dynamic} streaming setting. This yields a separation from the Euclidean case, where the polylogarithmic-space $(1+\epsilon)$-approximation extends to dynamic streams. On the technical side, our sliding-window algorithm builds on the smooth histogram framework of [Braverman and Ostrovsky, SICOMP'10]. To make this framework applicable, we establish the first smoothness bound for metric Max-Cut. Moreover, we develop a streaming algorithm for metric Max-Cut in insertion-only streams, whose key ingredient is a new metric reservoir sampling technique.