Optimal Bounds for Open Addressing Without Reordering
Martı́n Farach-Colton, Andrew Krapivin, William Kuszmaul · 2024
In this paper, we revisit one of the simplest problems in data structures: the task of inserting elements into an open-addressed hash table so that elements can later be retrieved with as few probes as possible. We show that, even without reordering elements over time, it is possible to construct a hash table that achieves far better expected search complexities (both amortized and worst-case) than were previously thought possible. Along the way, we disprove the central conjecture left by Yao in his seminal paper “Uniform Hashing is Optimal”.