Deterministic fully dynamic data structures for vertex cover and matching

We present the first deterministic data structures for maintaining approximate minimum vertex cover and maximum matching in a fully dynamic graph 𝐺=(𝑉,𝐸), with |𝑉|=𝑛 and |𝐸|=𝑚, in 𝑜(𝑚‾‾√) time per update. In particular, for minimum vertex cover, we provide deterministic data structures for maintaining a (2+𝜖) approximation in 𝑂(log𝑛/𝜖2) amortized time per update. For maximum matching, we show how to maintain a (3+𝜖) approximation in 𝑂(min(𝑛√/𝜖,𝑚1/3/𝜖2) amortized time per update and a (4+𝜖) approximation in 𝑂(𝑚1/3/𝜖2) worst-case time per update. Our data structure for fully dynamic minimum vertex cover is essentially near-optimal and settles an open problem by Onak and Rubinfeld [in 42nd ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing, Cambridge, MA, ACM, 2010, pp. 457--464].