18,870 research outputs found
Deciding first-order properties of nowhere dense graphs
Nowhere dense graph classes, introduced by Nesetril and Ossona de Mendez,
form a large variety of classes of "sparse graphs" including the class of
planar graphs, actually all classes with excluded minors, and also bounded
degree graphs and graph classes of bounded expansion.
We show that deciding properties of graphs definable in first-order logic is
fixed-parameter tractable on nowhere dense graph classes. At least for graph
classes closed under taking subgraphs, this result is optimal: it was known
before that for all classes C of graphs closed under taking subgraphs, if
deciding first-order properties of graphs in C is fixed-parameter tractable,
then C must be nowhere dense (under a reasonable complexity theoretic
assumption).
As a by-product, we give an algorithmic construction of sparse neighbourhood
covers for nowhere dense graphs. This extends and improves previous
constructions of neighbourhood covers for graph classes with excluded minors.
At the same time, our construction is considerably simpler than those. Our
proofs are based on a new game-theoretic characterisation of nowhere dense
graphs that allows for a recursive version of locality-based algorithms on
these classes. On the logical side, we prove a "rank-preserving" version of
Gaifman's locality theorem.Comment: 30 page
Decycling a graph by the removal of a matching: new algorithmic and structural aspects in some classes of graphs
A graph is {\em matching-decyclable} if it has a matching such that
is acyclic. Deciding whether is matching-decyclable is an NP-complete
problem even if is 2-connected, planar, and subcubic. In this work we
present results on matching-decyclability in the following classes: Hamiltonian
subcubic graphs, chordal graphs, and distance-hereditary graphs. In Hamiltonian
subcubic graphs we show that deciding matching-decyclability is NP-complete
even if there are exactly two vertices of degree two. For chordal and
distance-hereditary graphs, we present characterizations of
matching-decyclability that lead to -time recognition algorithms
Recovering sparse graphs
We construct a fixed parameter algorithm parameterized by d and k that takes
as an input a graph G' obtained from a d-degenerate graph G by complementing on
at most k arbitrary subsets of the vertex set of G and outputs a graph H such
that G and H agree on all but f(d,k) vertices.
Our work is motivated by the first order model checking in graph classes that
are first order interpretable in classes of sparse graphs. We derive as a
corollary that if G_0 is a graph class with bounded expansion, then the first
order model checking is fixed parameter tractable in the class of all graphs
that can obtained from a graph G from G_0 by complementing on at most k
arbitrary subsets of the vertex set of G; this implies an earlier result that
the first order model checking is fixed parameter tractable in graph classes
interpretable in classes of graphs with bounded maximum degree
Quantum query complexity of minor-closed graph properties
We study the quantum query complexity of minor-closed graph properties, which
include such problems as determining whether an -vertex graph is planar, is
a forest, or does not contain a path of a given length. We show that most
minor-closed properties---those that cannot be characterized by a finite set of
forbidden subgraphs---have quantum query complexity \Theta(n^{3/2}). To
establish this, we prove an adversary lower bound using a detailed analysis of
the structure of minor-closed properties with respect to forbidden topological
minors and forbidden subgraphs. On the other hand, we show that minor-closed
properties (and more generally, sparse graph properties) that can be
characterized by finitely many forbidden subgraphs can be solved strictly
faster, in o(n^{3/2}) queries. Our algorithms are a novel application of the
quantum walk search framework and give improved upper bounds for several
subgraph-finding problems.Comment: v1: 25 pages, 2 figures. v2: 26 page
Successor-Invariant First-Order Logic on Graphs with Excluded Topological Subgraphs
We show that the model-checking problem for successor-invariant first-order
logic is fixed-parameter tractable on graphs with excluded topological
subgraphs when parameterised by both the size of the input formula and the size
of the exluded topological subgraph. Furthermore, we show that model-checking
for order-invariant first-order logic is tractable on coloured posets of
bounded width, parameterised by both the size of the input formula and the
width of the poset.
Our result for successor-invariant FO extends previous results for this logic
on planar graphs (Engelmann et al., LICS 2012) and graphs with excluded minors
(Eickmeyer et al., LICS 2013), further narrowing the gap between what is known
for FO and what is known for successor-invariant FO. The proof uses Grohe and
Marx's structure theorem for graphs with excluded topological subgraphs. For
order-invariant FO we show that Gajarsk\'y et al.'s recent result for FO
carries over to order-invariant FO
Testing first-order properties for subclasses of sparse graphs
We present a linear-time algorithm for deciding first-order (FO) properties
in classes of graphs with bounded expansion, a notion recently introduced by
Nesetril and Ossona de Mendez. This generalizes several results from the
literature, because many natural classes of graphs have bounded expansion:
graphs of bounded tree-width, all proper minor-closed classes of graphs, graphs
of bounded degree, graphs with no subgraph isomorphic to a subdivision of a
fixed graph, and graphs that can be drawn in a fixed surface in such a way that
each edge crosses at most a constant number of other edges. We deduce that
there is an almost linear-time algorithm for deciding FO properties in classes
of graphs with locally bounded expansion.
More generally, we design a dynamic data structure for graphs belonging to a
fixed class of graphs of bounded expansion. After a linear-time initialization
the data structure allows us to test an FO property in constant time, and the
data structure can be updated in constant time after addition/deletion of an
edge, provided the list of possible edges to be added is known in advance and
their simultaneous addition results in a graph in the class. All our results
also hold for relational structures and are based on the seminal result of
Nesetril and Ossona de Mendez on the existence of low tree-depth colorings
On Brambles, Grid-Like Minors, and Parameterized Intractability of Monadic Second-Order Logic
Brambles were introduced as the dual notion to treewidth, one of the most
central concepts of the graph minor theory of Robertson and Seymour. Recently,
Grohe and Marx showed that there are graphs G, in which every bramble of order
larger than the square root of the treewidth is of exponential size in |G|. On
the positive side, they show the existence of polynomial-sized brambles of the
order of the square root of the treewidth, up to log factors. We provide the
first polynomial time algorithm to construct a bramble in general graphs and
achieve this bound, up to log-factors. We use this algorithm to construct
grid-like minors, a replacement structure for grid-minors recently introduced
by Reed and Wood, in polynomial time. Using the grid-like minors, we introduce
the notion of a perfect bramble and an algorithm to find one in polynomial
time. Perfect brambles are brambles with a particularly simple structure and
they also provide us with a subgraph that has bounded degree and still large
treewidth; we use them to obtain a meta-theorem on deciding certain
parameterized subgraph-closed problems on general graphs in time singly
exponential in the parameter.
The second part of our work deals with providing a lower bound to Courcelle's
famous theorem, stating that every graph property that can be expressed by a
sentence in monadic second-order logic (MSO), can be decided by a linear time
algorithm on classes of graphs of bounded treewidth. Using our results from the
first part of our work we establish a strong lower bound for tractability of
MSO on classes of colored graphs
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