The Hopcroft-Karp algorithm is a highly efficient method used for finding a maximum matching in a bipartite graph. A bipartite graph consists of two disjoint sets of vertices, where edges only connect vertices from different sets. The algorithm operates in two main phases: broadening and augmenting. During the broadening phase, it performs a breadth-first search (BFS) to identify the shortest augmenting paths, while the augmenting phase uses these paths to increase the size of the matching. The runtime of the Hopcroft-Karp algorithm is , where is the number of edges and is the number of vertices in the graph, making it significantly faster than earlier methods for large graphs. This efficiency is particularly beneficial in applications such as job assignments, network flow problems, and various scheduling tasks.
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