  We study the maximum weight matching problem in the semi-streaming model, and
improve on the currently best one-pass algorithm due to Zelke (Proc. of
STACS2008, pages 669-680) by devising a deterministic approach whose
performance guarantee is 4.91+epsilon. In addition, we study preemptive online
algorithms, a sub-class of one-pass algorithms where we are only allowed to
maintain a feasible matching in memory at any point in time. All known results
prior to Zelke's belong to this sub-class. We provide a lower bound of 4.967 on
the competitive ratio of any such deterministic algorithm, and hence show that
future improvements will have to store in memory a set of edges which is not
necessarily a feasible matching.
