Distributed Dominating Set Approximations beyond Planar Graphs

The Minimum Dominating Set (MDS) problem is one of the most fundamental and challenging problems in distributed computing. While it is well-known that minimum dominating sets cannot be approximated locally on general graphs, over the last years, there has been much progress on computing local approximations on sparse graphs, and in particular planar graphs. In this paper we study distributed and deterministic MDS approximation algorithms for graph classes beyond planar graphs. In particular, we show that existing approximation bounds for planar graphs can be lifted to bounded genus graphs, and present (1) a local constant-time, constant-factor MDS approximation algorithm and (2) a local $\mathcal{O}(\log^*{n})$-time approximation scheme. Our main technical contribution is a new analysis of a slightly modified variant of an existing algorithm by Lenzen et al. Interestingly, unlike existing proofs for planar graphs, our analysis does not rely on direct topological arguments.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1602.0299

New Parameters for Beyond-Planar Graphs

Parameters for graphs appear frequently throughout the history of research in this field. They represent very important measures for the properties of graphs and graph drawings, and are often a main criterion for their classification and their aesthetic perception. In this direction, we provide new results for the following graph parameters: – The segment complexity of trees; – the membership of graphs of bounded vertex degree to certain graph classes; – the maximal complete and complete bipartite graphs contained in certain graph classes beyond-planarity; – the crossing number of graphs; – edge densities for outer-gap-planar graphs and for bipartite gap-planar graphs with certain properties; – edge densities and inclusion relationships for 2-layer graphs, as well as characterizations for complete bipartite graphs in the 2-layer setting

Compact Drawings of 1-Planar Graphs with Right-Angle Crossings and Few Bends

We study the following classes of beyond-planar graphs: 1-planar, IC-planar, and NIC-planar graphs. These are the graphs that admit a 1-planar, IC-planar, and NIC-planar drawing, respectively. A drawing of a graph is 1-planar if every edge is crossed at most once. A 1-planar drawing is IC-planar if no two pairs of crossing edges share a vertex. A 1-planar drawing is NIC-planar if no two pairs of crossing edges share two vertices. We study the relations of these beyond-planar graph classes (beyond-planar graphs is a collective term for the primary attempts to generalize the planar graphs) to right-angle crossing (RAC) graphs that admit compact drawings on the grid with few bends. We present four drawing algorithms that preserve the given embeddings. First, we show that every $n$-vertex NIC-planar graph admits a NIC-planar RAC drawing with at most one bend per edge on a grid of size $O(n) \times O(n)$. Then, we show that every $n$-vertex 1-planar graph admits a 1-planar RAC drawing with at most two bends per edge on a grid of size $O(n^3) \times O(n^3)$. Finally, we make two known algorithms embedding-preserving; for drawing 1-planar RAC graphs with at most one bend per edge and for drawing IC-planar RAC graphs straight-line

Shallow Minors, Graph Products and Beyond Planar Graphs

The planar graph product structure theorem of Dujmovi\'{c}, Joret, Micek, Morin, Ueckerdt, and Wood [J. ACM 2020] states that every planar graph is a subgraph of the strong product of a graph with bounded treewidth and a path. This result has been the key tool to resolve important open problems regarding queue layouts, nonrepetitive colourings, centered colourings, and adjacency labelling schemes. In this paper, we extend this line of research by utilizing shallow minors to prove analogous product structure theorems for several beyond planar graph classes. The key observation that drives our work is that many beyond planar graphs can be described as a shallow minor of the strong product of a planar graph with a small complete graph. In particular, we show that powers of planar graphs, $k$-planar, $(k,p)$-cluster planar, fan-planar and $k$-fan-bundle planar graphs have such a shallow-minor structure. Using a combination of old and new results, we deduce that these classes have bounded queue-number, bounded nonrepetitive chromatic number, polynomial $p$-centred chromatic numbers, linear strong colouring numbers, and cubic weak colouring numbers. In addition, we show that $k$-gap planar graphs have at least exponential local treewidth and, as a consequence, cannot be described as a subgraph of the strong product of a graph with bounded treewidth and a path

Macroscopic network circulation for planar graphs

The analysis of networks, aimed at suitably defined functionality, often focuses on partitions into subnetworks that capture desired features. Chief among the relevant concepts is a 2-partition, that underlies the classical Cheeger inequality, and highlights a constriction (bottleneck) that limits accessibility between the respective parts of the network. In a similar spirit, the purpose of the present work is to introduce a new concept of maximal global circulation and to explore 3-partitions that expose this type of macroscopic feature of networks. Herein, graph circulation is motivated by transportation networks and probabilistic flows (Markov chains) on graphs. Our goal is to quantify the large-scale imbalance of network flows and delineate key parts that mediate such global features. While we introduce and propose these notions in a general setting, in this paper, we only work out the case of planar graphs. We explain that a scalar potential can be identified to encapsulate the concept of circulation, quite similarly as in the case of the curl of planar vector fields. Beyond planar graphs, in the general case, the problem to determine global circulation remains at present a combinatorial problem

Drawing Graphs with Circular Arcs and Right-Angle Crossings

In a RAC drawing of a graph, vertices are represented by points in the plane, adjacent vertices are connected by line segments, and crossings must form right angles. Graphs that admit such drawings are RAC graphs. RAC graphs are beyond-planar graphs and have been studied extensively. In particular, it is known that a RAC graph with n vertices has at most 4n - 10 edges. We introduce a superclass of RAC graphs, which we call arc-RAC graphs. A graph is arc-RAC if it admits a drawing where edges are represented by circular arcs and crossings form right angles. We provide a Tur\'an-type result showing that an arc-RAC graph with n vertices has at most 14n - 12 edges and that there are n-vertex arc-RAC graphs with 4.5n - o(n) edges