1,446 research outputs found
On the Parameterized Intractability of Monadic Second-Order Logic
One of Courcelle's celebrated results states that if C is a class of graphs
of bounded tree-width, then model-checking for monadic second order logic
(MSO_2) is fixed-parameter tractable (fpt) on C by linear time parameterized
algorithms, where the parameter is the tree-width plus the size of the formula.
An immediate question is whether this is best possible or whether the result
can be extended to classes of unbounded tree-width. In this paper we show that
in terms of tree-width, the theorem cannot be extended much further. More
specifically, we show that if C is a class of graphs which is closed under
colourings and satisfies certain constructibility conditions and is such that
the tree-width of C is not bounded by \log^{84} n then MSO_2-model checking is
not fpt unless SAT can be solved in sub-exponential time. If the tree-width of
C is not poly-logarithmically bounded, then MSO_2-model checking is not fpt
unless all problems in the polynomial-time hierarchy can be solved in
sub-exponential time
Generalisation : graphs and colourings
The interaction between practice and theory in mathematics is a central theme. Many mathematical structures and theories result from the formalisation of a real problem. Graph Theory is rich with such examples. The graph structure itself was formalised by Leonard Euler in the quest to solve the problem of the Bridges of Königsberg. Once a structure is formalised, and results are proven, the mathematician seeks to generalise. This can be considered as one of the main praxis in mathematics. The idea of generalisation will be illustrated through graph colouring. This idea also results from a classic problem, in which it was well known by topographers that four colours suffice to colour any map such that no countries sharing a border receive the same colour. The proof of this theorem eluded mathematicians for centuries and was proven in 1976. Generalisation of graphs to hypergraphs, and variations on the colouring theme will be discussed, as well as applications in other disciplines.peer-reviewe
Reconfiguring Graph Homomorphisms on the Sphere
Given a loop-free graph , the reconfiguration problem for homomorphisms to
(also called -colourings) asks: given two -colourings of of a
graph , is it possible to transform into by a sequence of
single-vertex colour changes such that every intermediate mapping is an
-colouring? This problem is known to be polynomial-time solvable for a wide
variety of graphs (e.g. all -free graphs) but only a handful of hard
cases are known. We prove that this problem is PSPACE-complete whenever is
a -free quadrangulation of the -sphere (equivalently, the plane)
which is not a -cycle. From this result, we deduce an analogous statement
for non-bipartite -free quadrangulations of the projective plane. This
include several interesting classes of graphs, such as odd wheels, for which
the complexity was known, and -chromatic generalized Mycielski graphs, for
which it was not.
If we instead consider graphs and with loops on every vertex (i.e.
reflexive graphs), then the reconfiguration problem is defined in a similar way
except that a vertex can only change its colour to a neighbour of its current
colour. In this setting, we use similar ideas to show that the reconfiguration
problem for -colourings is PSPACE-complete whenever is a reflexive
-free triangulation of the -sphere which is not a reflexive triangle.
This proof applies more generally to reflexive graphs which, roughly speaking,
resemble a triangulation locally around a particular vertex. This provides the
first graphs for which -Recolouring is known to be PSPACE-complete for
reflexive instances.Comment: 22 pages, 9 figure
Path Coupling Using Stopping Times and Counting Independent Sets and Colourings in Hypergraphs
We give a new method for analysing the mixing time of a Markov chain using
path coupling with stopping times. We apply this approach to two hypergraph
problems. We show that the Glauber dynamics for independent sets in a
hypergraph mixes rapidly as long as the maximum degree Delta of a vertex and
the minimum size m of an edge satisfy m>= 2Delta+1. We also show that the
Glauber dynamics for proper q-colourings of a hypergraph mixes rapidly if m>= 4
and q > Delta, and if m=3 and q>=1.65Delta. We give related results on the
hardness of exact and approximate counting for both problems.Comment: Simpler proof of main theorem. Improved bound on mixing time. 19
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