156 research outputs found
Obstructions to within a few vertices or edges of acyclic
Finite obstruction sets for lower ideals in the minor order are guaranteed to
exist by the Graph Minor Theorem. It has been known for several years that, in
principle, obstruction sets can be mechanically computed for most natural lower
ideals. In this paper, we describe a general-purpose method for finding
obstructions by using a bounded treewidth (or pathwidth) search. We illustrate
this approach by characterizing certain families of cycle-cover graphs based on
the two well-known problems: -{\sc Feedback Vertex Set} and -{\sc
Feedback Edge Set}. Our search is based on a number of algorithmic strategies
by which large constants can be mitigated, including a randomized strategy for
obtaining proofs of minimality.Comment: 16 page
An FPT algorithm and a polynomial kernel for Linear Rankwidth-1 Vertex Deletion
Linear rankwidth is a linearized variant of rankwidth, introduced by Oum and
Seymour [Approximating clique-width and branch-width. J. Combin. Theory Ser. B,
96(4):514--528, 2006]. Motivated from recent development on graph modification
problems regarding classes of graphs of bounded treewidth or pathwidth, we
study the Linear Rankwidth-1 Vertex Deletion problem (shortly, LRW1-Vertex
Deletion). In the LRW1-Vertex Deletion problem, given an -vertex graph
and a positive integer , we want to decide whether there is a set of at most
vertices whose removal turns into a graph of linear rankwidth at most
and find such a vertex set if one exists. While the meta-theorem of
Courcelle, Makowsky, and Rotics implies that LRW1-Vertex Deletion can be solved
in time for some function , it is not clear whether this
problem allows a running time with a modest exponential function.
We first establish that LRW1-Vertex Deletion can be solved in time . The major obstacle to this end is how to handle a long
induced cycle as an obstruction. To fix this issue, we define necklace graphs
and investigate their structural properties. Later, we reduce the polynomial
factor by refining the trivial branching step based on a cliquewidth expression
of a graph, and obtain an algorithm that runs in time . We also prove that the running time cannot be improved to under the Exponential Time Hypothesis assumption. Lastly,
we show that the LRW1-Vertex Deletion problem admits a polynomial kernel.Comment: 29 pages, 9 figures, An extended abstract appeared in IPEC201
Cutwidth: obstructions and algorithmic aspects
Cutwidth is one of the classic layout parameters for graphs. It measures how
well one can order the vertices of a graph in a linear manner, so that the
maximum number of edges between any prefix and its complement suffix is
minimized. As graphs of cutwidth at most are closed under taking
immersions, the results of Robertson and Seymour imply that there is a finite
list of minimal immersion obstructions for admitting a cut layout of width at
most . We prove that every minimal immersion obstruction for cutwidth at
most has size at most .
As an interesting algorithmic byproduct, we design a new fixed-parameter
algorithm for computing the cutwidth of a graph that runs in time , where is the optimum width and is the number of vertices.
While being slower by a -factor in the exponent than the fastest known
algorithm, given by Thilikos, Bodlaender, and Serna in [Cutwidth I: A linear
time fixed parameter algorithm, J. Algorithms, 56(1):1--24, 2005] and [Cutwidth
II: Algorithms for partial -trees of bounded degree, J. Algorithms,
56(1):25--49, 2005], our algorithm has the advantage of being simpler and
self-contained; arguably, it explains better the combinatorics of optimum-width
layouts
FPT is Characterized by Useful Obstruction Sets
Many graph problems were first shown to be fixed-parameter tractable using
the results of Robertson and Seymour on graph minors. We show that the
combination of finite, computable, obstruction sets and efficient order tests
is not just one way of obtaining strongly uniform FPT algorithms, but that all
of FPT may be captured in this way. Our new characterization of FPT has a
strong connection to the theory of kernelization, as we prove that problems
with polynomial kernels can be characterized by obstruction sets whose elements
have polynomial size. Consequently we investigate the interplay between the
sizes of problem kernels and the sizes of the elements of such obstruction
sets, obtaining several examples of how results in one area yield new insights
in the other. We show how exponential-size minor-minimal obstructions for
pathwidth k form the crucial ingredient in a novel OR-cross-composition for
k-Pathwidth, complementing the trivial AND-composition that is known for this
problem. In the other direction, we show that OR-cross-compositions into a
parameterized problem can be used to rule out the existence of efficiently
generated quasi-orders on its instances that characterize the NO-instances by
polynomial-size obstructions.Comment: Extended abstract with appendix, as accepted to WG 201
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