Minimizers – how to use them?

Hi All!

I would like to ask you about minimizers and their usage in NGS. I read about minimizers, and know how to prepare them (homolog.us/blogs/bioinfo/2017/10/25/intro-minimizer/), but what I don’t understand is how they are actually used in kmer matching?

I know that many tools use minimizers, I suppose to decrease the amount of matching to reference database (hash-maps).

I would like to ask you, how minimizers are used for matching? And also, what is a typical structure of hash-map?

Many thanks for any answer.

Best,
Agata