Solution: Find K Pairs with Smallest Sums

Explore how to efficiently find k pairs with the smallest sums from two sorted arrays by using a min heap and k-way merge techniques. Understand both naive and optimized approaches, analyze their complexity, and implement the optimal solution to solve this common coding interview pattern.

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Statement
Solution

Statement

You are given two integer arrays, list1 and list2, sorted in non-decreasing order, and an integer, k.

A pair $(u, \space v)$ is defined as one element $u$ chosen from list1 and one element $v$ chosen from list2.

Your task is to return the k pairs $(u1, \space v1), (u2, \space v2), ..., (uk, \space vk)$ whose sums $u1 + v1, u2 + v2, ..., uk + vk$ are the smallest among all possible such pairs.