Maximizing a Monotone Submodular Function Subject to a Matroid Constraint

Let f : 2 → R+ be a monotone submodular set function, and let (X, I) be a matroid. We consider the problem maxS∈I f(S). It is known that the greedy algorithm yields a 1/2approximation [14] for this problem. For certain special cases, e.g. max|S|≤k f(S), the greedy algorithm yields a (1− 1/e)-approximation. It is known that this is optimal both in the value oracle model (where the only access to f is through a black box returning f(S) for a given set S) [28], and also for explicitly posed instances assuming P 6= NP [10]. In this paper, we provide a randomized (1 − 1/e)-approximation for any monotone submodular function and an arbitrary matroid. The algorithm works in the value oracle model. Our main tools are a variant of the pipage rounding technique of Ageev and Sviridenko [1], and a continuous greedy process that might be of independent interest. As a special case, our algorithm implies an optimal approximation for the Submodular Welfare Problem in the value oracle model [32]. As a second application, we show that the Generalized Assignment Problem (GAP) is also a special case; although the reduction requires |X| to be exponential in the original problem size, we are able to achieve a (1 − 1/e − o(1))approximation for GAP, simplifying previously known algorithms. Additionally, the reduction enables us to obtain approximation algorithms for variants of GAP with more general constraints.