Towards an Isomorphism Dichotomy for Hereditary Graph Classes

In this paper we resolve the complexity of the isomorphism problem on all but finitely many of the graph classes characterized by two forbidden induced subgraphs. To this end we develop new techniques applicable for the structural and algorithmic analysis of graphs. First, we develop a methodology to show isomorphism completeness of the isomorphism problem on graph classes by providing a general framework unifying various reduction techniques. Second, we generalize the concept of the modular decomposition to colored graphs, allowing for non-standard decompositions. We show that, given a suitable decomposition functor, the graph isomorphism problem reduces to checking isomorphism of colored prime graphs. Third, we extend the techniques of bounded color valence and hypergraph isomorphism on hypergraphs of bounded color size as follows. We say a colored graph has generalized color valence at most k if, after removing all vertices in color classes of size at most k, for each color class C every vertex has at most k neighbors in C or at most k non-neighbors in C. We show that isomorphism of graphs of bounded generalized color valence can be solved in polynomial time.Comment: 37 pages, 4 figure

Link groups of 4-manifolds

The notion of a Bing cell is introduced, and it is used to define invariants, link groups, of 4-manifolds. Bing cells combine some features of both surfaces and 4-dimensional handlebodies, and the link group \lambda(M) measures certain aspects of the handle structure of a 4-manifold M. This group is a quotient of the fundamental group, and examples of manifolds are given with \pi_1(M) not equal to \lambda(M). The main construction of the paper is a generalization of the Milnor group, which is used to formulate an obstruction to embeddability of Bing cells into 4-space. Applications to the A-B slice problem and to the structure of topological arbiters are discussed.Comment: 34 pages, 7 figures. v.3: minor phrasing change

Phase transitions in 3D gravity and fractal dimension

We show that for three dimensional gravity with higher genus boundary conditions, if the theory possesses a sufficiently light scalar, there is a second order phase transition where the scalar field condenses. This three dimensional version of the holographic superconducting phase transition occurs even though the pure gravity solutions are locally AdS$_3$. This is in addition to the first order Hawking-Page-like phase transitions between different locally AdS$_3$ handlebodies. This implies that the R\'enyi entropies of holographic CFTs will undergo phase transitions as the R\'enyi parameter is varied, as long as the theory possesses a scalar operator which is lighter than a certain critical dimension. We show that this critical dimension has an elegant mathematical interpretation as the Hausdorff dimension of the limit set of a quotient group of AdS$_3$, and use this to compute it, analytically near the boundary of moduli space and numerically in the interior of moduli space. We compare this to a CFT computation generalizing recent work of Belin, Keller and Zadeh, bounding the critical dimension using higher genus conformal blocks, and find a surprisingly good match

Largeness and SQ-universality of cyclically presented groups

Largeness, SQ-universality, and the existence of free subgroups of rank 2 are measures of the complexity of a finitely presented group. We obtain conditions under which a cyclically presented group possesses one or more of these properties. We apply our results to a class of groups introduced by Prishchepov which contains, amongst others, the various generalizations of Fibonacci groups introduced by Campbell and Robertson