Fast 2-Approximate All-Pairs Shortest Paths

In this paper, we revisit the classic approximate All-Pairs Shortest Paths (APSP) problem in undirected graphs. For unweighted graphs, we provide an algorithm for $2$-approximate APSP in $\tilde O(n^{2.5-r}+n^{ω(r)})$ time, for any $r\in[0,1]$. This is $O(n^{2.032})$ time, using known bounds for rectangular matrix multiplication $n^{ω(r)}$ [Le Gall, Urrutia, SODA 2018]. Our result improves on the $\tilde{O}(n^{2.25})$ bound of [Roditty, STOC 2023], and on the $\tilde{O}(m\sqrt n+n^2)$ bound of [Baswana, Kavitha, SICOMP 2010] for graphs with $m\geq n^{1.532}$ edges. For weighted graphs, we obtain $(2+ε)$-approximate APSP in $\tilde O(n^{3-r}+n^{ω(r)})$ time, for any $r\in [0,1]$. This is $O(n^{2.214})$ time using known bounds for $ω(r)$. It improves on the state of the art bound of $O(n^{2.25})$ by [Kavitha, Algorithmica 2012]. Our techniques further lead to improved bounds in a wide range of density for weighted graphs. In particular, for the sparse regime we construct a distance oracle in $\tilde O(mn^{2/3})$ time that supports $2$-approximate queries in constant time. For sparse graphs, the preprocessing time of the algorithm matches conditional lower bounds [Patrascu, Roditty, Thorup, FOCS 2012; Abboud, Bringmann, Fischer, STOC 2023]. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first 2-approximate distance oracle that has subquadratic preprocessing time in sparse graphs. We also obtain new bounds in the near additive regime for unweighted graphs. We give faster algorithms for $(1+ε,k)$-approximate APSP, for $k=2,4,6,8$. We obtain these results by incorporating fast rectangular matrix multiplications into various combinatorial algorithms that carefully balance out distance computation on layers of sparse graphs preserving certain distance information.