Counting edge-injective homomorphisms and matchings on restricted graph classes

We consider the $\#\mathsf{W}[1]$-hard problem of counting all matchings with exactly $k$ edges in a given input graph $G$; we prove that it remains $\#\mathsf{W}[1]$-hard on graphs $G$ that are line graphs or bipartite graphs with degree $2$ on one side. In our proofs, we use that $k$-matchings in line graphs can be equivalently viewed as edge-injective homomorphisms from the disjoint union of $k$ length-$2$ paths into (arbitrary) host graphs. Here, a homomorphism from $H$ to $G$ is edge-injective if it maps any two distinct edges of $H$ to distinct edges in $G$. We show that edge-injective homomorphisms from a pattern graph $H$ can be counted in polynomial time if $H$ has bounded vertex-cover number after removing isolated edges. For hereditary classes $\mathcal{H}$ of pattern graphs, we complement this result: If the graphs in $\mathcal{H}$ have unbounded vertex-cover number even after deleting isolated edges, then counting edge-injective homomorphisms with patterns from $\mathcal{H}$ is $\#\mathsf{W}[1]$-hard. Our proofs rely on an edge-colored variant of Holant problems and a delicate interpolation argument; both may be of independent interest.Comment: 35 pages, 9 figure

Applications of entropy to extremal problems

The Sidorenko conjecture gives a lower bound on the number of homomorphisms from a bipartite graph to another graph. Szegedy [28] used entropy methods to prove the conjecture in some cases. We will refine these methods to also give lower bounds for the number of injective homomorphisms from a bipartite graph to another bipartite graph, and a lower bound for the number of homomorphisms from a k-partite hypergraph to another k-partite hypergraph, as well as a few other similar problems. Next is a generalisation of the Kruskal Katona Theorem [19, 17]. We are given integers k 4 we will make a lot of progress towards finding a solution. The next chapter is to do with Turán-type problems. Given a family of k-hypergraphs F, ex(n;F) is the maximum number of edges an F-free n-vertex k-hypergraph can have. We prove that for a rational r, there exists some finite family F of k-hypergraphs for which ex(n;F) = Ɵ(nk-r) if and only if 0 < r < k - 1 or r = k. The final chapter will deal with the implicit representation conjecture, in the special case of semi-algebraic graphs. Given a graph in such a family, we want to assign a name to each vertex in such a way that we can recover each edge based only on the names of the two incident vertices. We will first prove that one `obvious' way of storing the information doesn't work. Then we will come up with a way of storing the information that requires O(n1-E) bits per vertex, where E is some small constant depending only on the family

Two Approaches to Sidorenko's Conjecture

Sidorenko's conjecture states that for every bipartite graph $H$ on $\{1,\cdots,k\}$, $\int \prod_{(i,j)\in E(H)} h(x_i, y_j) d\mu^{|V(H)|} \ge \left( \int h(x,y) \,d\mu^2 \right)^{|E(H)|}$ holds, where $\mu$ is the Lebesgue measure on $[0,1]$ and $h$ is a bounded, non-negative, symmetric, measurable function on $[0,1]^2$. An equivalent discrete form of the conjecture is that the number of homomorphisms from a bipartite graph $H$ to a graph $G$ is asymptotically at least the expected number of homomorphisms from $H$ to the Erd\H{o}s-R\'{e}nyi random graph with the same expected edge density as $G$. In this paper, we present two approaches to the conjecture. First, we introduce the notion of tree-arrangeability, where a bipartite graph $H$ with bipartition $A \cup B$ is tree-arrangeable if neighborhoods of vertices in $A$ have a certain tree-like structure. We show that Sidorenko's conjecture holds for all tree-arrangeable bipartite graphs. In particular, this implies that Sidorenko's conjecture holds if there are two vertices $a_1, a_2$ in $A$ such that each vertex $a \in A$ satisfies $N(a) \subseteq N(a_1)$ or $N(a) \subseteq N(a_2)$, and also implies a recent result of Conlon, Fox, and Sudakov \cite{CoFoSu}. Second, if $T$ is a tree and $H$ is a bipartite graph satisfying Sidorenko's conjecture, then it is shown that the Cartesian product $T \Box H$ of $T$ and $H$ also satisfies Sidorenko's conjecture. This result implies that, for all $d \ge 2$, the $d$-dimensional grid with arbitrary side lengths satisfies Sidorenko's conjecture.Comment: 20 pages, 2 figure

Multicolor and directed edit distance

The editing of a combinatorial object is the alteration of some of its elements such that the resulting object satisfies a certain fixed property. The edit problem for graphs, when the edges are added or deleted, was first studied independently by the authors and K\'ezdy [J. Graph Theory (2008), 58(2), 123--138] and by Alon and Stav [Random Structures Algorithms (2008), 33(1), 87--104]. In this paper, a generalization of graph editing is considered for multicolorings of the complete graph as well as for directed graphs. Specifically, the number of edge-recolorings sufficient to be performed on any edge-colored complete graph to satisfy a given hereditary property is investigated. The theory for computing the edit distance is extended using random structures and so-called types or colored homomorphisms of graphs.Comment: 25 page

Homomorphisms are a good basis for counting small subgraphs

We introduce graph motif parameters, a class of graph parameters that depend only on the frequencies of constant-size induced subgraphs. Classical works by Lov\'asz show that many interesting quantities have this form, including, for fixed graphs $H$, the number of $H$-copies (induced or not) in an input graph $G$, and the number of homomorphisms from $H$ to $G$. Using the framework of graph motif parameters, we obtain faster algorithms for counting subgraph copies of fixed graphs $H$ in host graphs $G$: For graphs $H$ on $k$ edges, we show how to count subgraph copies of $H$ in time $k^{O(k)}\cdot n^{0.174k + o(k)}$ by a surprisingly simple algorithm. This improves upon previously known running times, such as $O(n^{0.91k + c})$ time for $k$-edge matchings or $O(n^{0.46k + c})$ time for $k$-cycles. Furthermore, we prove a general complexity dichotomy for evaluating graph motif parameters: Given a class $\mathcal C$ of such parameters, we consider the problem of evaluating $f\in \mathcal C$ on input graphs $G$, parameterized by the number of induced subgraphs that $f$ depends upon. For every recursively enumerable class $\mathcal C$, we prove the above problem to be either FPT or #W[1]-hard, with an explicit dichotomy criterion. This allows us to recover known dichotomies for counting subgraphs, induced subgraphs, and homomorphisms in a uniform and simplified way, together with improved lower bounds. Finally, we extend graph motif parameters to colored subgraphs and prove a complexity trichotomy: For vertex-colored graphs $H$ and $G$, where $H$ is from a fixed class $\mathcal H$, we want to count color-preserving $H$-copies in $G$. We show that this problem is either polynomial-time solvable or FPT or #W[1]-hard, and that the FPT cases indeed need FPT time under reasonable assumptions.Comment: An extended abstract of this paper appears at STOC 201