Solving the Canonical Representation and Star System Problems for Proper Circular-Arc Graphs in Log-Space

We present a logspace algorithm that constructs a canonical intersection model for a given proper circular-arc graph, where `canonical' means that models of isomorphic graphs are equal. This implies that the recognition and the isomorphism problems for this class of graphs are solvable in logspace. For a broader class of concave-round graphs, that still possess (not necessarily proper) circular-arc models, we show that those can also be constructed canonically in logspace. As a building block for these results, we show how to compute canonical models of circular-arc hypergraphs in logspace, which are also known as matrices with the circular-ones property. Finally, we consider the search version of the Star System Problem that consists in reconstructing a graph from its closed neighborhood hypergraph. We solve it in logspace for the classes of proper circular-arc, concave-round, and co-convex graphs.Comment: 19 pages, 3 figures, major revisio

The Complexity of Bisimulation and Simulation on Finite Systems

In this paper the computational complexity of the (bi)simulation problem over restricted graph classes is studied. For trees given as pointer structures or terms the (bi)simulation problem is complete for logarithmic space or NC$^1$, respectively. This solves an open problem from Balc\'azar, Gabarr\'o, and S\'antha. Furthermore, if only one of the input graphs is required to be a tree, the bisimulation (simulation) problem is contained in AC$^1$ (LogCFL). In contrast, it is also shown that the simulation problem is P-complete already for graphs of bounded path-width

Space Complexity of Perfect Matching in Bounded Genus Bipartite Graphs

We investigate the space complexity of certain perfect matching problems over bipartite graphs embedded on surfaces of constant genus (orientable or non-orientable). We show that the problems of deciding whether such graphs have (1) a perfect matching or not and (2) a unique perfect matching or not, are in the logspace complexity class \SPL. Since \SPL\ is contained in the logspace counting classes \oplus\L (in fact in \modk\ for all $k\geq 2$), \CeqL, and \PL, our upper bound places the above-mentioned matching problems in these counting classes as well. We also show that the search version, computing a perfect matching, for this class of graphs is in \FL^{\SPL}. Our results extend the same upper bounds for these problems over bipartite planar graphs known earlier. As our main technical result, we design a logspace computable and polynomially bounded weight function which isolates a minimum weight perfect matching in bipartite graphs embedded on surfaces of constant genus. We use results from algebraic topology for proving the correctness of the weight function.Comment: 23 pages, 13 figure

The complexity of the characteristic and the minimal polynomial

AbstractWe investigate the complexity of (1) computing the characteristic polynomial, the minimal polynomial, and all the invariant factors of an integer matrix, and of (2) verifying them, when the coefficients are given as input.It is known that each coefficient of the characteristic polynomial of a matrix A is computable in GapL, and the constant term, the determinant of A, is complete for GapL. We show that the verification of the characteristic polynomial is complete for complexity class C=L (exact counting logspace).We show that each coefficient of the minimal polynomial of a matrix A can be computed in AC0(GapL), the AC0-closure of GapL, and there is a coefficient which is hard for GapL. Furthermore, the verification of the minimal polynomial is in AC0(C=L) and is hard for C=L. The hardness result extends to (computing and verifying) the system of all invariant factors of a matrix

The Complexity of Surjective Homomorphism Problems -- a Survey

We survey known results about the complexity of surjective homomorphism problems, studied in the context of related problems in the literature such as list homomorphism, retraction and compaction. In comparison with these problems, surjective homomorphism problems seem to be harder to classify and we examine especially three concrete problems that have arisen from the literature, two of which remain of open complexity