Analysis of two-variable recurrence relations with application to parameterized approximations

In this paper we introduce randomized branching as a tool for parameterized approximation and develop the mathematical machinery for its analysis. Our algorithms substantially improve the best known running times of parameterized approximation algorithms for Vertex Cover and 3-Hitting Set for a wide range of approximation ratios. The running times of our algorithms are derived from an asymptotic analysis of a broad class of two-variable recurrence relations. Our main theorem gives a simple formula for this asymptotics. The formula can be efficiently calculated by solving a simple numerical optimization problem, and provides the mathematical insight required for the algorithm design. To this end, we show an equivalence between the recurrence and a stochastic process. We analyze this process using the method of types, by introducing an adaptation of Sanov's theorem to our setting. We believe our novel analysis of recurrence relations which is of independent interest is a main contribution of this paper.