Optimal Parallel Basis Finding in Graphic and Related Matroids

We study the parallel complexity of finding a basis of a graphic matroid under independence-oracle access. Karp, Upfal, and Wigderson (FOCS 1985, JCSS 1988) initiated the study of this problem and established two algorithms for finding a spanning forest: one running in $O(\log m)$ rounds with $m^{\Theta(\log m)}$ queries, and another, for any $d \in \mathbb{Z}^+$, running in $O(m^{2/d})$ rounds with $\Theta(m^d)$ queries. A key open question they posed was whether one could simultaneously achieve polylogarithmic rounds and polynomially many queries. We give a deterministic algorithm that uses $O(\log m)$ adaptive rounds and $\mathrm{poly}(m)$ non-adaptive queries per round to return a spanning forest on $m$ edges, and complement this result with a matching $\Omega(\log m)$ lower bound for any (even randomized) algorithm with $\mathrm{poly}(m)$ queries per round. Thus, the adaptive round complexity for graphic matroids is characterized exactly, settling this long-standing problem. Beyond graphs, we show that our framework also yields an $O(\log m)$-round, $\mathrm{poly}(m)$-query algorithm for any binary matroid satisfying a smooth circuit counting property, implying, among others, an optimal $O(\log m)$-round parallel algorithms for finding bases of cographic matroids.