Random Proposals: A Softmax-Based Local-Improvement Framework for Maximum Weighted Matching

Abstract: We propose a randomized local-improvement algorithm for the Maximum Weighted Matching (MWM) problem. Our method introduces a softmax-based biased sampling mechanism that achieves local $\varepsilon$-dominance and yields an expected $\frac{1}{2}-\varepsilon$ approximation ratio. We prove convergence guarantees and show that the algorithm runs in $O!\left(m\log(1/\varepsilon)/p_{\min}\right)$ time, where $p_{\min}$ is the minimum softmax proposal probability over all edges; under mild conditions on the bias parameter and weight range, this simplifies to $O(m\log(1/\varepsilon))$. The framework provides a tunable tradeoff between convergence speed and approximation quality.