English

Competitively Chasing Convex Bodies

Data Structures and Algorithms 2018-11-05 v1 Metric Geometry

Abstract

Let F\mathcal{F} be a family of sets in some metric space. In the F\mathcal{F}-chasing problem, an online algorithm observes a request sequence of sets in F\mathcal{F} and responds (online) by giving a sequence of points in these sets. The movement cost is the distance between consecutive such points. The competitive ratio is the worst case ratio (over request sequences) between the total movement of the online algorithm and the smallest movement one could have achieved by knowing in advance the request sequence. The family F\mathcal{F} is said to be chaseable if there exists an online algorithm with finite competitive ratio. In 1991, Linial and Friedman conjectured that the family of convex sets in Euclidean space is chaseable. We prove this conjecture.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1811.00887,
  title  = {Competitively Chasing Convex Bodies},
  author = {Sébastien Bubeck and Yin Tat Lee and Yuanzhi Li and Mark Sellke},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1811.00887},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

14 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-23T05:02:09.872Z