Absolute reflexive retracts and absolute bipartite retracts

AbstractIt is a well-known phenomenon in the study of graph retractions that most results about absolute retracts in the class of bipartite (irreflexive) graphs have analogues about absolute retracts in the class of reflexive graphs, and vice versa. In this paper we make some observations that make the connection explicit. We develop four natural transformations between reflexive graphs and bipartite graphs which preserve the property of being an absolute retract, and allow us to derive results about absolute reflexive retracts from similar results about absolute bipartite retracts and conversely. Then we introduce generic notions that specialize to the appropriate concepts in both cases. This paves the way to a unified view of both theories, leading to absolute retracts of general (i.e., partially reflexive) graphs

A Brightwell-Winkler type characterisation of NU graphs

In 2000, Brightwell and Winkler characterised dismantlable graphs as the graphs $H$ for which the Hom-graph ${\rm Hom}(G,H)$, defined on the set of homomorphisms from $G$ to $H$, is connected for all graphs $G$. This shows that the reconfiguration version ${\rm Recon_{Hom}}(H)$ of the $H$-colouring problem, in which one must decide for a given $G$ whether ${\rm Hom}(G,H)$ is connected, is trivial if and only if $H$ is dismantlable. We prove a similar starting point for the reconfiguration version of the $H$-extension problem. Where ${\rm Hom}(G,H;p)$ is the subgraph of the Hom-graph ${\rm Hom}(G,H)$ induced by the $H$-colourings extending the $H$-precolouring $p$ of $G$, the reconfiguration version ${\rm Recon_{Ext}(H)}$ of the $H$-extension problem asks, for a given $H$-precolouring $p$ of a graph $G$, if ${\rm Hom}(G,H;p)$ is connected. We show that the graphs $H$ for which ${\rm Hom}(G,H;p)$ is connected for every choice of $(G,p)$ are exactly the ${\rm NU}$ graphs. This gives a new characterisation of ${\rm NU}$ graphs, a nice class of graphs that is important in the algebraic approach to the ${\rm CSP}$-dichotomy. We further give bounds on the diameter of ${\rm Hom}(G,H;p)$ for ${\rm NU}$ graphs $H$, and show that shortest path between two vertices of ${\rm Hom}(G,H;p)$ can be found in parameterised polynomial time. We apply our results to the problem of shortest path reconfiguration, significantly extending recent results.Comment: 17 pages, 1 figur

Clique graphs and Helly graphs

AbstractAmong the graphs for which the system of cliques has the Helly property those are characterized which are clique-convergent to the one-vertex graph. These graphs, also known as the so-called absolute retracts of reflexive graphs, are the line graphs of conformal Helly hypergraphs possessing a certain elimination scheme. From particular classes of such hypergraphs one can readily construct various classes G of graphs such that each member of G has its clique graph in G and is itself the clique graph of some other member of G. Examples include the classes of strongly chordal graphs and Ptolemaic graphs, respectively

Beyond Helly graphs: the diameter problem on absolute retracts

Characterizing the graph classes such that, on $n$-vertex $m$-edge graphs in the class, we can compute the diameter faster than in ${\cal O}(nm)$ time is an important research problem both in theory and in practice. We here make a new step in this direction, for some metrically defined graph classes. Specifically, a subgraph $H$ of a graph $G$ is called a retract of $G$ if it is the image of some idempotent endomorphism of $G$. Two necessary conditions for $H$ being a retract of $G$ is to have $H$ is an isometric and isochromatic subgraph of $G$. We say that $H$ is an absolute retract of some graph class ${\cal C}$ if it is a retract of any $G \in {\cal C}$ of which it is an isochromatic and isometric subgraph. In this paper, we study the complexity of computing the diameter within the absolute retracts of various hereditary graph classes. First, we show how to compute the diameter within absolute retracts of bipartite graphs in randomized $\tilde{\cal O}(m\sqrt{n})$ time. For the special case of chordal bipartite graphs, it can be improved to linear time, and the algorithm even computes all the eccentricities. Then, we generalize these results to the absolute retracts of $k$-chromatic graphs, for every fixed $k \geq 3$. Finally, we study the diameter problem within the absolute retracts of planar graphs and split graphs, respectively

QCSP on partially reflexive forests

We study the (non-uniform) quantified constraint satisfaction problem QCSP(H) as H ranges over partially reflexive forests. We obtain a complexity-theoretic dichotomy: QCSP(H) is either in NL or is NP-hard. The separating condition is related firstly to connectivity, and thereafter to accessibility from all vertices of H to connected reflexive subgraphs. In the case of partially reflexive paths, we give a refinement of our dichotomy: QCSP(H) is either in NL or is Pspace-complete