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arXiv:2303.11779v3 Announce Type: replace
Abstract: We consider the online hitting set problem for the range space $\Sigma=(\cal X,\cal R)$, where the point set $\cal X$ is known beforehand, but the set $\cal R$ of geometric objects is not known in advance. Here, objects from $\cal R$ arrive one by one. The objective of the problem is to maintain a hitting set of the minimum cardinality by taking irrevocable decisions. In this paper, we consider the problem when objects are unit balls or unit hypercubes in $\mathbb{R}^d$, and the points from $\mathbb{Z}^d$ are used for hitting them. First, we address the case when objects are unit intervals in $\mathbb{R}$ and present an optimal deterministic algorithm with a competitive ratio of~$2$. Then, we consider the case when objects are unit balls. For hitting unit balls in $\mathbb{R}^2$ and $\mathbb{R}^3$, we present $4$ and $14$-competitive deterministic algorithms, respectively. On the other hand, for hitting unit balls in $\mathbb{R}^d$, we propose an $O(d^4)$-competitive deterministic algorithm, and we demonstrate that}, for $d