A 1.488 approximation algorithm for the uncapacitated facility location problem

  • Authors:
  • Shi Li

  • Affiliations:
  • Department of Computer Science, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08540, USA

  • Venue:
  • Information and Computation
  • Year:
  • 2013

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Abstract

We present a 1.488-approximation algorithm for the metric uncapacitated facility location (UFL) problem. Previously, the best algorithm was due to Byrka (2007). Byrka proposed an algorithm parametrized by @c and used it with @c~1.6774. By either running his algorithm or the algorithm proposed by Jain, Mahdian and Saberi (STOC@?02), Byrka obtained an algorithm that gives expected approximation ratio 1.5. We show that if @c is randomly selected, the approximation ratio can be improved to 1.488. Our algorithm cuts the gap with the 1.463 approximability lower bound by almost 1/3.