Analysis of Smooth Heaps and Slim Heaps

Abstract

The smooth heap is a recently introduced self-adjusting heap [Kozma, Saranurak, 2018] similar to the pairing heap [Fredman, Sedgewick, Sleator, Tarjan, 1986]. The smooth heap was obtained as a heap-counterpart of Greedy BST, a binary search tree updating strategy conjectured to be instance-optimal [Lucas, 1988], [Munro, 2000]. Several adaptive properties of smooth heaps follow from this connection; moreover, the smooth heap itself has been conjectured to be instance-optimal within a certain class of heaps. Nevertheless, no general analysis of smooth heaps has existed until now, the only previous analysis showing that, when used in sorting mode (n insertions followed by n delete-min operations), smooth heaps sort n numbers in O(nlg n) time. In this paper we describe a simpler variant of the smooth heap we call the slim heap. We give a new, self-contained analysis of smooth heaps and slim heaps in unrestricted operation, obtaining amortized bounds that match the best bounds known for self-adjusting heaps. Previous experimental work has found the pairing heap to dominate other data structures in this class in various settings. Our tests show that smooth heaps and slim heaps are competitive with pairing heaps, outperforming them in some cases, while being comparably easy to implement.