1,450 research outputs found
On the Complexity of Local Distributed Graph Problems
This paper is centered on the complexity of graph problems in the
well-studied LOCAL model of distributed computing, introduced by Linial [FOCS
'87]. It is widely known that for many of the classic distributed graph
problems (including maximal independent set (MIS) and -vertex
coloring), the randomized complexity is at most polylogarithmic in the size
of the network, while the best deterministic complexity is typically
. Understanding and narrowing down this exponential gap
is considered to be one of the central long-standing open questions in the area
of distributed graph algorithms. We investigate the problem by introducing a
complexity-theoretic framework that allows us to shed some light on the role of
randomness in the LOCAL model. We define the SLOCAL model as a sequential
version of the LOCAL model. Our framework allows us to prove completeness
results with respect to the class of problems which can be solved efficiently
in the SLOCAL model, implying that if any of the complete problems can be
solved deterministically in rounds in the LOCAL model, we can
deterministically solve all efficient SLOCAL-problems (including MIS and
-coloring) in rounds in the LOCAL model. We show
that a rather rudimentary looking graph coloring problem is complete in the
above sense: Color the nodes of a graph with colors red and blue such that each
node of sufficiently large polylogarithmic degree has at least one neighbor of
each color. The problem admits a trivial zero-round randomized solution. The
result can be viewed as showing that the only obstacle to getting efficient
determinstic algorithms in the LOCAL model is an efficient algorithm to
approximately round fractional values into integer values
Fast Distributed Approximation for Max-Cut
Finding a maximum cut is a fundamental task in many computational settings.
Surprisingly, it has been insufficiently studied in the classic distributed
settings, where vertices communicate by synchronously sending messages to their
neighbors according to the underlying graph, known as the or
models. We amend this by obtaining almost optimal
algorithms for Max-Cut on a wide class of graphs in these models. In
particular, for any , we develop randomized approximation
algorithms achieving a ratio of to the optimum for Max-Cut on
bipartite graphs in the model, and on general graphs in the
model.
We further present efficient deterministic algorithms, including a
-approximation for Max-Dicut in our models, thus improving the best known
(randomized) ratio of . Our algorithms make non-trivial use of the greedy
approach of Buchbinder et al. (SIAM Journal on Computing, 2015) for maximizing
an unconstrained (non-monotone) submodular function, which may be of
independent interest
Recoloring bounded treewidth graphs
Let be an integer. Two vertex -colorings of a graph are
\emph{adjacent} if they differ on exactly one vertex. A graph is
\emph{-mixing} if any proper -coloring can be transformed into any other
through a sequence of adjacent proper -colorings. Any graph is
-mixing, where is the treewidth of the graph (Cereceda 2006). We
prove that the shortest sequence between any two -colorings is at most
quadratic, a problem left open in Bonamy et al. (2012).
Jerrum proved that any graph is -mixing if is at least the maximum
degree plus two. We improve Jerrum's bound using the grundy number, which is
the worst number of colors in a greedy coloring.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure
Problems and memories
I state some open problems coming from joint work with Paul Erd\H{o}sComment: This is a paper form of the talk I gave on July 5, 2013 at the
centennial conference in Budapest to honor Paul Erd\H{o}
Recoloring graphs via tree decompositions
Let be an integer. Two vertex -colorings of a graph are
\emph{adjacent} if they differ on exactly one vertex. A graph is
\emph{-mixing} if any proper -coloring can be transformed into any other
through a sequence of adjacent proper -colorings. Jerrum proved that any
graph is -mixing if is at least the maximum degree plus two. We first
improve Jerrum's bound using the grundy number, which is the worst number of
colors in a greedy coloring.
Any graph is -mixing, where is the treewidth of the graph
(Cereceda 2006). We prove that the shortest sequence between any two
-colorings is at most quadratic (which is optimal up to a constant
factor), a problem left open in Bonamy et al. (2012).
We also prove that given any two -colorings of a cograph (resp.
distance-hereditary graph) , we can find a linear (resp. quadratic) sequence
between them. In both cases, the bounds cannot be improved by more than a
constant factor for a fixed . The graph classes are also optimal in
some sense: one of the smallest interesting superclass of distance-hereditary
graphs corresponds to comparability graphs, for which no such property holds
(even when relaxing the constraint on the length of the sequence). As for
cographs, they are equivalently the graphs with no induced , and there
exist -free graphs that admit no sequence between two of their
-colorings.
All the proofs are constructivist and lead to polynomial-time recoloring
algorithmComment: 20 pages, 8 figures, partial results already presented in
http://arxiv.org/abs/1302.348
Decompositions into subgraphs of small diameter
We investigate decompositions of a graph into a small number of low diameter
subgraphs. Let P(n,\epsilon,d) be the smallest k such that every graph G=(V,E)
on n vertices has an edge partition E=E_0 \cup E_1 \cup ... \cup E_k such that
|E_0| \leq \epsilon n^2 and for all 1 \leq i \leq k the diameter of the
subgraph spanned by E_i is at most d. Using Szemer\'edi's regularity lemma,
Polcyn and Ruci\'nski showed that P(n,\epsilon,4) is bounded above by a
constant depending only \epsilon. This shows that every dense graph can be
partitioned into a small number of ``small worlds'' provided that few edges can
be ignored. Improving on their result, we determine P(n,\epsilon,d) within an
absolute constant factor, showing that P(n,\epsilon,2) = \Theta(n) is unbounded
for \epsilon
n^{-1/2} and P(n,\epsilon,4) = \Theta(1/\epsilon) for \epsilon > n^{-1}. We
also prove that if G has large minimum degree, all the edges of G can be
covered by a small number of low diameter subgraphs. Finally, we extend some of
these results to hypergraphs, improving earlier work of Polcyn, R\"odl,
Ruci\'nski, and Szemer\'edi.Comment: 18 page
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