33 research outputs found
Slightly Superexponential Parameterized Problems
A central problem in parameterized algorithms is to obtain algorithms with running time f(k) center dot n(O(1)) such that f is as slow growing a function of the parameter k as possible. In particular, a large number of basic parameterized problems admit parameterized algorithms where f (k) is single-exponential, that is, c(k) for some constant c, which makes aiming for such a running time a natural goal for other problems as well. However, there are still plenty of problems where the f(k) appearing in the best-known running time is worse than single-exponential and it remained "slightly superexponential" even after serious attempts to bring it down. A natural question to ask is whether the f (k) appearing in the running time of the best-known algorithms is optimal for any of _ these problems. In this paper, we examine parameterized problems where f(k) is k(O(k)) = 2(O(k log k)) in the best-known running time, and for a number of such problems we show that the dependence on k in the running time cannot be improved to single-exponential. More precisely we prove the following tight lower bounds, for four natural problems, arising from three different domains: (1) In the CLOSEST STRING problem, given strings S-1,..., s(t) over an alphabet Sigma of length L each, and an integer d, the question is whether there exists a string s over E of length L, such that its hamming distance from each of the strings s,, 1 <= i <= t, is at most d. The pattern matching problem CLOSEST STRING is known to be solvable in times 2(O(d log d)) center dot n(O(1)) and 2(O(d log vertical bar Sigma vertical bar)) center dot n(O(1)). We show that there are no 2(O(d log d)) center dot n(O(1)) or 2(O(d log vertical bar Sigma vertical bar)) time algorithms, unless the Exponential Time Hypothesis (ETH) fails. (2) The graph embedding problem DISTORTION, that is, deciding whether a graph G has a metric embedding into the integers with distortion at most d can be solved in time 2(O(d log d)) center dot n(O(1)). We show that there is no 2(O(w log w)) center dot n(O(1)) time algorithm, unless the ETH fails. (3) The DISJOINT PATHS problem can be solved in time 2(O(w log w)) center dot n(O(1)) on graphs of treewidth at most w. We show that there is no 2(O(w log w)) center dot n(O(1)) time algorithm, unless the ETH fails. (4) The CHROMATIC NUMBER problem can be solved in time 2(O(w log w)) center dot n(O(1)) on graphs of treewidth at most w. We show that there is no 2(O(w log w)) center dot n(O(1)) time algorithm, unless the ETH fails. To obtain our results, we first prove the lower bound for variants of basic problems: finding cliques, independent sets, and hitting sets. These artificially constrained variants form a good starting point for proving lower bounds on natural problems without any technical restrictions and could be of independent interest. Several follow-up works have already obtained tight lower bounds by using our framework, and we believe it will prove useful in obtaining even more lower bounds in the future
Lower bounds for approximation schemes for Closest String
In the Closest String problem one is given a family of
equal-length strings over some fixed alphabet, and the task is to find a string
that minimizes the maximum Hamming distance between and a string from
. While polynomial-time approximation schemes (PTASes) for this
problem are known for a long time [Li et al., J. ACM'02], no efficient
polynomial-time approximation scheme (EPTAS) has been proposed so far. In this
paper, we prove that the existence of an EPTAS for Closest String is in fact
unlikely, as it would imply that , a highly
unexpected collapse in the hierarchy of parameterized complexity classes. Our
proof also shows that the existence of a PTAS for Closest String with running
time , for any computable function
, would contradict the Exponential Time Hypothesis
On Exact Algorithms for Permutation CSP
In the Permutation Constraint Satisfaction Problem (Permutation CSP) we are
given a set of variables and a set of constraints C, in which constraints
are tuples of elements of V. The goal is to find a total ordering of the
variables, , which satisfies as many
constraints as possible. A constraint is satisfied by an
ordering when . An instance has arity
if all the constraints involve at most elements.
This problem expresses a variety of permutation problems including {\sc
Feedback Arc Set} and {\sc Betweenness} problems. A naive algorithm, listing
all the permutations, requires time. Interestingly, {\sc
Permutation CSP} for arity 2 or 3 can be solved by Held-Karp type algorithms in
time , but no algorithm is known for arity at least 4 with running
time significantly better than . In this paper we resolve the
gap by showing that {\sc Arity 4 Permutation CSP} cannot be solved in time
unless ETH fails
Multidimensional Binary Vector Assignment problem: standard, structural and above guarantee parameterizations
In this article we focus on the parameterized complexity of the
Multidimensional Binary Vector Assignment problem (called \BVA). An input of
this problem is defined by disjoint sets , each
composed of binary vectors of size . An output is a set of disjoint
-tuples of vectors, where each -tuple is obtained by picking one vector
from each set . To each -tuple we associate a dimensional vector by
applying the bit-wise AND operation on the vectors of the tuple. The
objective is to minimize the total number of zeros in these vectors. mBVA
can be seen as a variant of multidimensional matching where hyperedges are
implicitly locally encoded via labels attached to vertices, but was originally
introduced in the context of integrated circuit manufacturing.
We provide for this problem FPT algorithms and negative results (-based
results, [2]-hardness and a kernel lower bound) according to several
parameters: the standard parameter i.e. the total number of zeros), as well
as two parameters above some guaranteed values.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figure
Lower Bounds for the Graph Homomorphism Problem
The graph homomorphism problem (HOM) asks whether the vertices of a given
-vertex graph can be mapped to the vertices of a given -vertex graph
such that each edge of is mapped to an edge of . The problem
generalizes the graph coloring problem and at the same time can be viewed as a
special case of the -CSP problem. In this paper, we prove several lower
bound for HOM under the Exponential Time Hypothesis (ETH) assumption. The main
result is a lower bound .
This rules out the existence of a single-exponential algorithm and shows that
the trivial upper bound is almost asymptotically
tight.
We also investigate what properties of graphs and make it difficult
to solve HOM. An easy observation is that an upper
bound can be improved to where
is the minimum size of a vertex cover of . The second
lower bound shows that the upper bound is
asymptotically tight. As to the properties of the "right-hand side" graph ,
it is known that HOM can be solved in time and
where is the maximum degree of
and is the treewidth of . This gives
single-exponential algorithms for graphs of bounded maximum degree or bounded
treewidth. Since the chromatic number does not exceed
and , it is natural to ask whether similar
upper bounds with respect to can be obtained. We provide a negative
answer to this question by establishing a lower bound for any
function . We also observe that similar lower bounds can be obtained for
locally injective homomorphisms.Comment: 19 page
Subset feedback vertex set is fixed parameter tractable
The classical Feedback Vertex Set problem asks, for a given undirected graph
G and an integer k, to find a set of at most k vertices that hits all the
cycles in the graph G. Feedback Vertex Set has attracted a large amount of
research in the parameterized setting, and subsequent kernelization and
fixed-parameter algorithms have been a rich source of ideas in the field.
In this paper we consider a more general and difficult version of the
problem, named Subset Feedback Vertex Set (SUBSET-FVS in short) where an
instance comes additionally with a set S ? V of vertices, and we ask for a set
of at most k vertices that hits all simple cycles passing through S. Because of
its applications in circuit testing and genetic linkage analysis SUBSET-FVS was
studied from the approximation algorithms perspective by Even et al.
[SICOMP'00, SIDMA'00].
The question whether the SUBSET-FVS problem is fixed-parameter tractable was
posed independently by Kawarabayashi and Saurabh in 2009. We answer this
question affirmatively. We begin by showing that this problem is
fixed-parameter tractable when parametrized by |S|. Next we present an
algorithm which reduces the given instance to 2^k n^O(1) instances with the
size of S bounded by O(k^3), using kernelization techniques such as the
2-Expansion Lemma, Menger's theorem and Gallai's theorem. These two facts allow
us to give a 2^O(k log k) n^O(1) time algorithm solving the Subset Feedback
Vertex Set problem, proving that it is indeed fixed-parameter tractable.Comment: full version of a paper presented at ICALP'1
On Directed Feedback Vertex Set parameterized by treewidth
We study the Directed Feedback Vertex Set problem parameterized by the
treewidth of the input graph. We prove that unless the Exponential Time
Hypothesis fails, the problem cannot be solved in time on general directed graphs, where is the treewidth of
the underlying undirected graph. This is matched by a dynamic programming
algorithm with running time .
On the other hand, we show that if the input digraph is planar, then the
running time can be improved to .Comment: 20