The Maximum Degree-and-Diameter-Bounded Subgraph in the Mesh

The problem of finding the largest connected subgraph of a given undirected host graph, subject to constraints on the maximum degree $\Delta$ and the diameter $D$, was introduced in \cite{maxddbs}, as a generalization of the Degree-Diameter Problem. A case of special interest is when the host graph is a common parallel architecture. Here we discuss the case when the host graph is a $k$-dimensional mesh. We provide some general bounds for the order of the largest subgraph in arbitrary dimension $k$, and for the particular cases of $k=3, \Delta = 4$ and $k=2, \Delta = 3$, we give constructions that result in sharper lower bounds.Comment: accepted, 18 pages, 7 figures; Discrete Applied Mathematics, 201

A transfer principle and applications to eigenvalue estimates for graphs

In this paper, we prove a variant of the Burger-Brooks transfer principle which, combined with recent eigenvalue bounds for surfaces, allows to obtain upper bounds on the eigenvalues of graphs as a function of their genus. More precisely, we show the existence of a universal constants $C$ such that the $k$-th eigenvalue $\lambda_k^{nr}$ of the normalized Laplacian of a graph $G$ of (geometric) genus $g$ on $n$ vertices satisfies $$\lambda_k^{nr}(G) \leq C \frac{d_{\max}(g+k)}{n},$$ where $d_{\max}$ denotes the maximum valence of vertices of the graph. This result is tight up to a change in the value of the constant $C$, and improves recent results of Kelner, Lee, Price and Teng on bounded genus graphs. To show that the transfer theorem might be of independent interest, we relate eigenvalues of the Laplacian on a metric graph to the eigenvalues of its simple graph models, and discuss an application to the mesh partitioning problem, extending pioneering results of Miller-Teng-Thurston-Vavasis and Spielman-Tang to arbitrary meshes.Comment: Major revision, 16 page

Scaling limits of loop-erased random walks and uniform spanning trees

The uniform spanning tree (UST) and the loop-erased random walk (LERW) are related probabilistic processes. We consider the limits of these models on a fine grid in the plane, as the mesh goes to zero. Although the existence of scaling limits is still unproven, subsequential scaling limits can be defined in various ways, and do exist. We establish some basic a.s. properties of the subsequential scaling limits in the plane. It is proved that any LERW subsequential scaling limit is a simple path, and that the trunk of any UST subsequential scaling limit is a topological tree, which is dense in the plane. The scaling limits of these processes are conjectured to be conformally invariant in 2 dimensions. We make a precise statement of the conformal invariance conjecture for the LERW, and show that this conjecture implies an explicit construction of the scaling limit, as follows. Consider the Loewner differential equation ${\partial f\over\partial t} = z {\zeta(t)+z \over \zeta(t)-z} {\partial f\over\partial z}$ with boundary values $f(z,0)=z$, in the range z\in\U=\{w\in\C\st |w|<1\}, $t\le 0$. We choose \zeta(t):= \B(-2t), where \B(t) is Brownian motion on \partial \U starting at a random-uniform point in \partial \U. Assuming the conformal invariance of the LERW scaling limit in the plane, we prove that the scaling limit of LERW from 0 to \partial\U has the same law as that of the path $f(\zeta(t),t)$. We believe that a variation of this process gives the scaling limit of the boundary of macroscopic critical percolation clusters.Comment: (for V2) inserted another figure and two more reference

Distributed match-making

In many distributed computing environments, processes are concurrently executed by nodes in a store- and-forward communication network. Distributed control issues as diverse as name server, mutual exclusion, and replicated data management involve making matches between such processes. We propose a formal problem called distributed match-making as the generic paradigm. Algorithms for distributed match-making are developed and the complexity is investigated in terms of messages and in terms of storage needed. Lower bounds on the complexity of distributed match-making are established. Optimal algorithms, or nearly optimal algorithms, are given for particular network topologies