On the Complexity of Role Colouring Planar Graphs, Trees and Cographs

We prove several results about the complexity of the role colouring problem. A role colouring of a graph $G$ is an assignment of colours to the vertices of $G$ such that two vertices of the same colour have identical sets of colours in their neighbourhoods. We show that the problem of finding a role colouring with $1< k <n$ colours is NP-hard for planar graphs. We show that restricting the problem to trees yields a polynomially solvable case, as long as $k$ is either constant or has a constant difference with $n$, the number of vertices in the tree. Finally, we prove that cographs are always $k$-role-colourable for $1<k\leq n$ and construct such a colouring in polynomial time

Guessing Numbers of Odd Cycles

For a given number of colours, $s$, the guessing number of a graph is the base $s$ logarithm of the size of the largest family of colourings of the vertex set of the graph such that the colour of each vertex can be determined from the colours of the vertices in its neighbourhood. An upper bound for the guessing number of the $n$-vertex cycle graph $C_n$ is $n/2$. It is known that the guessing number equals $n/2$ whenever $n$ is even or $s$ is a perfect square \cite{Christofides2011guessing}. We show that, for any given integer $s\geq 2$, if $a$ is the largest factor of $s$ less than or equal to $\sqrt{s}$, for sufficiently large odd $n$, the guessing number of $C_n$ with $s$ colours is $(n-1)/2 + \log_s(a)$. This answers a question posed by Christofides and Markstr\"{o}m in 2011 \cite{Christofides2011guessing}. We also present an explicit protocol which achieves this bound for every $n$. Linking this to index coding with side information, we deduce that the information defect of $C_n$ with $s$ colours is $(n+1)/2 - \log_s(a)$ for sufficiently large odd $n$. Our results are a generalisation of the $s=2$ case which was proven in \cite{bar2011index}.Comment: 16 page

Detection of Core-Periphery Structure in Networks Using Spectral Methods and Geodesic Paths

We introduce several novel and computationally efficient methods for detecting "core--periphery structure" in networks. Core--periphery structure is a type of mesoscale structure that includes densely-connected core vertices and sparsely-connected peripheral vertices. Core vertices tend to be well-connected both among themselves and to peripheral vertices, which tend not to be well-connected to other vertices. Our first method, which is based on transportation in networks, aggregates information from many geodesic paths in a network and yields a score for each vertex that reflects the likelihood that a vertex is a core vertex. Our second method is based on a low-rank approximation of a network's adjacency matrix, which can often be expressed as a tensor-product matrix. Our third approach uses the bottom eigenvector of the random-walk Laplacian to infer a coreness score and a classification into core and peripheral vertices. We also design an objective function to (1) help classify vertices into core or peripheral vertices and (2) provide a goodness-of-fit criterion for classifications into core versus peripheral vertices. To examine the performance of our methods, we apply our algorithms to both synthetically-generated networks and a variety of networks constructed from real-world data sets.Comment: This article is part of EJAM's December 2016 special issue on "Network Analysis and Modelling" (available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/european-journal-of-applied-mathematics/issue/journal-ejm-volume-27-issue-6/D245C89CABF55DBF573BB412F7651ADB

Logarithmic Weisfeiler--Leman and Treewidth

In this paper, we show that the $(3k+4)$-dimensional Weisfeiler--Leman algorithm can identify graphs of treewidth $k$ in $O(\log n)$ rounds. This improves the result of Grohe & Verbitsky (ICALP 2006), who previously established the analogous result for $(4k+3)$-dimensional Weisfeiler--Leman. In light of the equivalence between Weisfeiler--Leman and the logic $\textsf{FO} + \textsf{C}$ (Cai, F\"urer, & Immerman, Combinatorica 1992), we obtain an improvement in the descriptive complexity for graphs of treewidth $k$. Precisely, if $G$ is a graph of treewidth $k$, then there exists a $(3k+5)$-variable formula $\varphi$ in $\textsf{FO} + \textsf{C}$ with quantifier depth $O(\log n)$ that identifies $G$ up to isomorphism

On the Last New Vertex Visited by a Random Walk in a Directed Graph

Consider a simple graph in which a random walk begins at a given vertex. It moves at each step with equal probability to any neighbor of its current vertex, and ends when it has visited every vertex. We call such a random walk a random cover tour. It is well known that cycles and complete graphs have the property that a random cover tour starting at any vertex is equally likely to end at any other vertex. Ronald Graham asked whether there are any other graphs with this property. In 1993, L\'aszlo Lov\'asz and Peter Winkler showed that cycles and complete graphs are the only undirected graphs with this property. We strengthen this result by showing that cycles and complete graphs (with all edges considered bidirected) are the only directed graphs with this property

Subgraph complementation and minimum rank

Any finite simple graph $G = (V,E)$ can be represented by a collection $\mathscr{C}$ of subsets of $V$ such that $uv\in E$ if and only if $u$ and $v$ appear together in an odd number of sets in $\mathscr{C}$. Let $c_2(G)$ denote the minimum cardinality of such a collection. This invariant is equivalent to the minimum dimension of a faithful orthogonal representation of $G$ over $\mathbb{F}_2$ and is closely connected to the minimum rank of $G$. We show that $c_2(G) = \operatorname{mr}(G,\mathbb{F}_2)$ when $\operatorname{mr}(G,\mathbb{F}_2)$ is odd, or when $G$ is a forest. Otherwise, $\operatorname{mr}(G,\mathbb{F}_2)\leq c_2(G)\leq \operatorname{mr}(G,\mathbb{F}_2)+1$. Furthermore, we show that the following are equivalent for any graph $G$ with at least one edge: i. $c_2(G)=\operatorname{mr}(G,\mathbb{F}_2)+1$; ii. the adjacency matrix of $G$ is the unique matrix of rank $\operatorname{mr}(G,\mathbb{F}_2)$ which fits $G$ over $\mathbb{F}_2$; iii. there is a minimum collection $\mathscr{C}$ as described in which every vertex appears an even number of times; and iv. for every component $G'$ of $G$, $c_2(G') = \operatorname{mr}(G',\mathbb{F}_2) + 1$. We also show that, for these graphs, $\operatorname{mr}(G,\mathbb{F}_2)$ is twice the minimum number of tricliques whose symmetric difference of edge sets is $E$. Additionally, we provide a set of upper bounds on $c_2(G)$ in terms of the order, size, and vertex cover number of $G$. Finally, we show that the class of graphs with $c_2(G)\leq k$ is hereditary and finitely defined. For odd $k$, the sets of minimal forbidden induced subgraphs are the same as those for the property $\operatorname{mr}(G,\mathbb{F}_2)\leq k$, and we exhibit this set for $c_2(G)\leq2$