Lock-in Problem for Parallel Rotor-router Walks

The rotor-router model, also called the Propp machine, was introduced as a deterministic alternative to the random walk. In this model, a group of identical tokens are initially placed at nodes of the graph. Each node maintains a cyclic ordering of the outgoing arcs, and during consecutive turns the tokens are propagated along arcs chosen according to this ordering in round-robin fashion. The behavior of the model is fully deterministic. Yanovski et al.(2003) proved that a single rotor-router walk on any graph with m edges and diameter $D$ stabilizes to a traversal of an Eulerian circuit on the set of all 2m directed arcs on the edge set of the graph, and that such periodic behaviour of the system is achieved after an initial transient phase of at most 2mD steps. The case of multiple parallel rotor-routers was studied experimentally, leading Yanovski et al. to the conjecture that a system of k \textgreater{} 1 parallel walks also stabilizes with a period of length at most $2m$ steps. In this work we disprove this conjecture, showing that the period of parallel rotor-router walks can in fact, be superpolynomial in the size of graph. On the positive side, we provide a characterization of the periodic behavior of parallel router walks, in terms of a structural property of stable states called a subcycle decomposition. This property provides us the tools to efficiently detect whether a given system configuration corresponds to the transient or to the limit behavior of the system. Moreover, we provide polynomial upper bounds of $O(m^4 D^2 + mD \log k)$ and $O(m^5 k^2)$ on the number of steps it takes for the system to stabilize. Thus, we are able to predict any future behavior of the system using an algorithm that takes polynomial time and space. In addition, we show that there exists a separation between the stabilization time of the single-walk and multiple-walk rotor-router systems, and that for some graphs the latter can be asymptotically larger even for the case of $k = 2$ walks

Robustness of the Rotor-Router Mechanism

International audienceThe rotor-router model, also called the Propp machine, was first considered as a deter-ministic alternative to the random walk. The edges adjacent to each node v (or equivalently, the exit ports at v) are arranged in a fixed cyclic order, which does not change during the exploration. Each node v maintains a port pointer π(v) which indicates the exit port to be adopted by an agent on the conclusion of the next visit to this node (the "next exit port"). The rotor-router mechanism guarantees that after each consecutive visit at the same node, the pointer at this node is moved to the next port in the cyclic order. It is known that, in an undirected graph G with m edges, the route adopted by an agent controlled by the rotor-router mechanism forms eventually an Euler tour based on arcs obtained via replacing each edge in G by two arcs with opposite direction. The process of ushering the agent to an Euler tour is referred to as the lock-in problem. In [Yanovski et al., Algorithmica 37(3), 165–186 (2003)], it was proved that, independently of the initial configuration of the rotor-router mechanism in G, the agent locks-in in time bounded by 2mD, where D is the diameter of G. In this paper we examine the dependence of the lock-in time on the initial configuration of the rotor-router mechanism. Our analysis is performed in the form of a game between a player P intending to lock-in the agent in an Euler tour as quickly as possible and its adversary A with the counter objective. We consider all cases of who decides the initial cyclic orders and the initial values π(v). We show, for example, that if A provides its own port numbering after the initial setup of pointers by P, the complexity of the lock-in problem is O(m·min{log m, D}). We also investigate the robustness of the rotor-router graph exploration in presence of faults in the pointers π(v) or dynamic changes in the graph. We show, for example, that after the exploration establishes an Eulerian cycle, if k edges are added to the graph, then a new Eulerian cycle is established within O(km) steps

Setting port numbers for fast graph exploration

International audienceWe consider the problem of periodic graph exploration by a finite automaton in which an automaton with a constant number of states has to explore all unknown anonymous graphs of arbitrary size and arbitrary maximum degree. In anonymous graphs, nodes are not labeled but edges are labeled in a local manner (called {\em local orientation}) so that the automaton is able to distinguish them. Precisely, the edges incident to a node $v$ are given port numbers from $1$ to $d_v$, where $d_v$ is the degree of~$v$. Periodic graph exploration means visiting every node infinitely often. We are interested in the length of the period, i.e., the maximum number of edge traversals between two consecutive visits of any node by the automaton in the same state and entering the node by the same port. This problem is unsolvable if local orientations are set arbitrarily. Given this impossibility result, we address the following problem: what is the mimimum function $\pi(n)$ such that there exist an algorithm for setting the local orientation, and a finite automaton using it, such that the automaton explores all graphs of size $n$ within the period $\pi(n)$? The best result so far is the upper bound $\pi(n)\leq 10n$, by Dobrev et al. [SIROCCO 2005], using an automaton with no memory (i.e. only one state). In this paper we prove a better upper bound $\pi(n)\leq 4n$. Our automaton uses three states but performs periodic exploration independently of its starting position and initial state

Euler Tour Lock-in Problem in the Rotor-Router Model

International audienceThe rotor-router model, also called the Propp machine, was first considered as a deterministic alternative to the random walk. It is known that the route in an undirected graph G=(V,E), where |V|=n and |E|=m, adopted by an agent controlled by the rotor-router mechanism forms eventually an Euler tour based on arcs obtained via replacing each edge in G by two arcs with opposite direction. The process of ushering the agent to an Euler tour is referred to as the lock-in problem. In recent work [Yan03] Yanovski et al. proved that independently of the initial configuration of the rotor-router mechanism in G the agent locks-in in time bounded by 2m diam, where diam is the diameter of G. This upper bound can be matched asymptotically in lollipop graphs. In this paper we examine the dependence of the lock-in time on the initial configuration of the rotor-router mechanism. The case study is performed in the form of a game between a player pl intending to lock-in the agent in an Euler tour as quickly as possible and its adversary ad with the counter objective. First, we observe that in certain (easy) cases the lock-in can be achieved in time O(m). On the other hand we show that if adversary ad is solely responsible for the assignment of ports and pointers, the lock-in time Omega(m diam) can be enforced in any graph with m edges and diameter diam. Furthermore, we show that if ad provides its own port numbering after the initial setup of pointers by pl, the complexity of the lock-in problem is bounded by O(m min{log m,diam}). We also propose a class of graphs in which the lock-in requires time Omega(m log m). In the remaining two cases we show that the lock-in requires time Omega(m diam) in graphs with the worst-case topology. In addition, however, we present non-trivial classes of graphs with a large diameter in which the lock-in time is O(m)

Ergodic Effects in Token Circulation

International audienceWe consider a dynamical process in a network which distributes all particles (tokens) located at a node among its neighbors, in a round-robin manner.We show that in the recurrent state of this dynamics (i.e., disregarding a polynomially long initialization phase of the system), the number of particles located on a given edge, averaged over an interval of time, is tightly concentrated around the average particle density in the system. Formally, for a system of $k$ particles in a graph of $m$ edges, during any interval of length $T$, this time-averaged value is $k/m \pm \widetilde O(1/T)$, whenever $gcd(m,k) = \widetilde O(1)$ (and so, e.g., whenever $m$ is a prime number). To achieve these bounds, we link the behavior of the studied dynamics to ergodic properties of traversals based on Eulerian circuits on a symmetric directed graph. These results are proved through sum set methods and are likely to be of independent interest.As a corollary, we also obtain bounds on the \emph{idleness} of the studied dynamics, i.e., on the longest possible time between two consecutive appearances of a token on an edge, taken over all edges. Designing trajectories for $k$ tokens in a way which minimizes idleness is fundamental to the study of the patrolling problem in networks. Our results immediately imply a bound of $\widetilde O(m/k)$ on the idleness of the studied process, showing that it is a distributed $\widetilde O(1)$-competitive solution to the patrolling task, for all of the covered cases. Our work also provides some further insights that may be interesting in load-balancing applications