23 research outputs found
Quasipolynomial Representation of Transversal Matroids with Applications in Parameterized Complexity
Deterministic polynomial-time computation of a representation of a transversal matroid is a longstanding open problem. We present a deterministic computation of a so-called union representation of a transversal matroid in time quasipolynomial in the rank of the matroid. More precisely, we output a collection of linear matroids such that a set is independent in the transversal matroid if and only if it is independent in at least one of them. Our proof directly implies that if one is interested in preserving independent sets of size at most r, for a given rinmathbb{N}, but does not care whether larger independent sets are preserved, then a union representation can be computed deterministically in time quasipolynomial in r. This consequence is of independent interest, and sheds light on the power of union~representation.
Our main result also has applications in Parameterized Complexity. First, it yields a fast computation of representative sets, and due to our relaxation in the context of r, this computation also extends to (standard) truncations. In turn, this computation enables to efficiently solve various problems, such as subcases of subgraph isomorphism, motif search and packing problems, in the presence of color lists. Such problems have been studied to model scenarios where pairs of elements to be matched may not be identical but only similar, and color lists aim to describe the set of compatible elements associated with each element
FPT-Algorithms for the l-Matchoid Problem with Linear and Submodular Objectives
We design a fixed-parameter deterministic algorithm for computing a maximum
weight feasible set under a -matchoid of rank , parameterized by
and . Unlike previous work that presumes linear representativity of
matroids, we consider the general oracle model. Our result, combined with the
lower bounds of Lovasz, and Jensen and Korte, demonstrates a separation between
the -matchoid and the matroid -parity problems in the setting of
fixed-parameter tractability.
Our algorithms are obtained by means of kernelization: we construct a small
representative set which contains an optimal solution. Such a set gives us much
flexibility in adapting to other settings, allowing us to optimize not only a
linear function, but also several important submodular functions. It also helps
to transform our algorithms into streaming algorithms.
In the streaming setting, we show that we can find a feasible solution of
value and the number of elements to be stored in memory depends only on
and but totally independent of . This shows that it is possible to
circumvent the recent space lower bound of Feldman et al., by parameterizing
the solution value. This result, combined with existing lower bounds, also
provides a new separation between the space and time complexity of maximizing
an arbitrary submodular function and a coverage function in the value oracle
model
Representative set statements for delta-matroids and the Mader delta-matroid
We present representative sets-style statements for linear delta-matroids,
which are set systems that generalize matroids, with important connections to
matching theory and graph embeddings. Furthermore, our proof uses a new
approach of sieving polynomial families, which generalizes the linear algebra
approach of the representative sets lemma to a setting of bounded-degree
polynomials. The representative sets statements for linear delta-matroids then
follow by analyzing the Pfaffian of the skew-symmetric matrix representing the
delta-matroid. Applying the same framework to the determinant instead of the
Pfaffian recovers the representative sets lemma for linear matroids.
Altogether, this significantly extends the toolbox available for kernelization.
As an application, we show an exact sparsification result for Mader networks:
Let be a graph and a partition of a set of terminals , . A -path in is a path with endpoints
in distinct parts of and internal vertices disjoint from . In
polynomial time, we can derive a graph with ,
such that for every subset there is a packing of
-paths with endpoints in if and only if there is one in
, and . This generalizes the (undirected version of the)
cut-covering lemma, which corresponds to the case that contains
only two blocks.
To prove the Mader network sparsification result, we furthermore define the
class of Mader delta-matroids, and show that they have linear representations.
This should be of independent interest
Determinantal Sieving
We introduce determinantal sieving, a new, remarkably powerful tool in the
toolbox of algebraic FPT algorithms. Given a polynomial on a set of
variables and a linear matroid of
rank , both over a field of characteristic 2, in
evaluations we can sieve for those terms in the monomial expansion of which
are multilinear and whose support is a basis for . Alternatively, using
evaluations of we can sieve for those monomials whose odd support
spans . Applying this framework, we improve on a range of algebraic FPT
algorithms, such as:
1. Solving -Matroid Intersection in time and -Matroid
Parity in time , improving on (Brand and Pratt,
ICALP 2021)
2. -Cycle, Colourful -Path, Colourful -Linkage in undirected
graphs, and the more general Rank -Linkage problem, all in
time, improving on respectively (Fomin et al., SODA 2023)
3. Many instances of the Diverse X paradigm, finding a collection of
solutions to a problem with a minimum mutual distance of in time
, improving solutions for -Distinct Branchings from time
to (Bang-Jensen et al., ESA 2021), and for Diverse
Perfect Matchings from to (Fomin et al.,
STACS 2021)
All matroids are assumed to be represented over a field of characteristic 2.
Over general fields, we achieve similar results at the cost of using
exponential space by working over the exterior algebra. For a class of
arithmetic circuits we call strongly monotone, this is even achieved without
any loss of running time. However, the odd support sieving result appears to be
specific to working over characteristic 2