Beyond Binary Heaps

While binary heaps are the most common, other specialized heaps exist.

• d-ary Heap

  A heap where each node has `d` children instead of 2. This creates a flatter tree, reducing its height, but increases the number of comparisons needed at each node during bubble down operations.

• Fibonacci Heap

  A more complex structure using a collection of trees. It offers faster amortized times for operations like `decreaseKey`, making it highly efficient in advanced graph algorithms like Dijkstra's.

• Binomial Heap

  A collection of special trees called "binomial trees." Its primary advantage is supporting the fast merging of two heaps, an operation that is slow for binary heaps.