We show that for various classes C of sparse graphs, and several measures of distance to such classes (such as edit distance and elimination distance), the problem of determining the distance of a given graph G to C is fixed-parameter tractable. The results are based on two general techniques. The first of these, building on recent work of Grohe et al. establishes that any class of graphs that is slicewise nowhere dense and slicewise first-order definable is FPT. The second shows that determining the elimination distance of a graph G to a minor-closed class C is FPT.
Inspired by a width invariant defined on permutations by Guillemot and Marx [SODA '14], we introduce the notion of twin-width on graphs and on matrices. Proper minor-closed classes, bounded rank-width graphs, map graphs, $K_t$-free unit $d$-dimensional ball graphs, posets with antichains of bounded size, and proper subclasses of dimension-2 posets all have bounded twin-width. On all these classes (except map graphs without geometric embedding) we show how to compute in polynomial time a sequence of $d$-contractions, witness that the twin-width is at most $d$. We show that FO model checking, th…
Royal Holloway, University of London（伦敦大学皇家霍洛威学院）；IRIT, University of Toulouse III（图卢兹第三大学图卢兹计算机研究所）；University of Edinburgh（爱丁堡大学）
The constraint satisfaction problem (CSP) is a general problem central to computer science and artificial intelligence. Although the CSP is NP-hard in general, considerable effort has been spent on identifying tractable subclasses. The main two approaches consider structural properties (restrictions on the hypergraph of constraint scopes) and relational properties (restrictions on the language of constraint relations). Recently, some authors have considered hybrid properties that restrict the constraint hypergraph and the relations simultaneously. Our key contribution is the novel concept of a…
We study Subgraph Isomorphism on graph classes defined by a fixed forbidden graph. Although there are several ways for forbidding a graph, we observe that it is reasonable to focus on the minor relation since other well-known relations lead to either trivial or equivalent problems. When the forbidden minor is connected, we present a near dichotomy of the complexity of Subgraph Isomorphism with respect to the forbidden minor, where the only unsettled case is $P_{5}$, the path of five vertices. We then also consider the general case of possibly disconnected forbidden minors. We show fixed-parame…
A vertex-subset graph problem Q defines which subsets of the vertices of an input graph are feasible solutions. A reconfiguration variant of a vertex-subset problem asks, given two feasible solutions S and T of size k, whether it is possible to transform S into T by a sequence of vertex additions and deletions such that each intermediate set is also a feasible solution of size bounded by k. We study reconfiguration variants of two classical vertex-subset problems, namely Independent Set and Dominating Set. We denote the former by ISR and the latter by DSR. Both ISR and DSR are PSPACE-complete …
A class of graphs is structurally nowhere dense if it can be constructed from a nowhere dense class by a first-order transduction. Structurally nowhere dense classes vastly generalize nowhere dense classes and constitute important examples of monadically stable classes. We show that the first-order model checking problem is fixed-parameter tractable on every structurally nowhere dense class of graphs. Our result builds on a recently developed game-theoretic characterization of monadically stable graph classes. As a second key ingredient of independent interest, we provide a polynomial-time alg…
We introduce the concept of shallow directed minors and based on this a new classification of classes of directed graphs which is diametric to existing directed graph decompositions and width measures proposed in the literature. We then study in depth one type of classes of directed graphs which we call nowhere crownful. The classes are very general as they include, on one hand, all classes of directed graphs whose underlying undirected class is nowhere dense, such as planar, bounded-genus, and $H$-minor-free graphs; and on the other hand, also contain classes of high edge density whose underl…
The Constraint Satisfaction Problem (CSP) is a central and generic computational problem which provides a common framework for many theoretical and practical applications. A central line of research is concerned with the identification of classes of instances for which CSP can be solved in polynomial time; such classes are often called "islands of tractability." A prominent way of defining islands of tractability for CSP is to restrict the relations that may occur in the constraints to a fixed set, called a constraint language, whereas a constraint language is conservative if it contains all u…
We extend the notion of a strong backdoor from the CSP setting to the Valued CSP setting (VCSP, for short). This provides a means for augmenting a class of tractable VCSP instances to instances that are outside the class but of small distance to the class, where the distance is measured in terms of the size of a smallest backdoor. We establish that VCSP is fixed-parameter tractable when parameterized by the size of a smallest backdoor into every tractable class of VCSP instances characterized by a (possibly infinite) tractable valued constraint language of finite arity and finite domain. We fu…
We present a fixed-parameter tractable algorithm for first-order model checking on interpretations of graph classes with bounded local cliquewidth. Notably, this includes interpretations of planar graphs, and more generally, of classes of bounded genus. To obtain this result we develop a new tool which works in a very general setting of dependent classes and which we believe can be an important ingredient in achieving similar results in the future.
We show that the dominating set problem admits a constant factor approximation in a constant number of rounds in the LOCAL model of distributed computing on graph classes with bounded expansion. This generalizes a result of Czygrinow et al. for graphs with excluded topological minors to very general classes of uniformly sparse graphs. We demonstrate how our general algorithm can be modified and fine-tuned to compute an ($11+ε$)-approximation (for any $ε>0)$ of a minimum dominating set on planar graphs. This improves on the previously best known approximation factor of 52 on planar graphs, whic…
We study the parameterized complexity of the directed variant of the classical {\sc Steiner Tree} problem on various classes of directed sparse graphs. While the parameterized complexity of {\sc Steiner Tree} parameterized by the number of terminals is well understood, not much is known about the parameterization by the number of non-terminals in the solution tree. All that is known for this parameterization is that both the directed and the undirected versions are W[2]-hard on general graphs, and hence unlikely to be fixed parameter tractable FPT. The undirected {\sc Steiner Tree} problem bec…
The computational complexity of the graph isomorphism problem is considered to be a major open problem in theoretical computer science. It is known that testing isomorphism of chordal graphs is polynomial-time equivalent to the general graph isomorphism problem. Every chordal graph can be represented as the intersection graph of some subtrees of a representing tree, and the leafage of a chordal graph is defined to be the minimum number of leaves in a representing tree for it. We prove that chordal graph isomorphism is fixed parameter tractable with leafage as parameter. In the process we intro…
We show that it is possible to use Bondy-Chvatal closure to design an FPT algorithm that decides whether or not it is possible to cover vertices of an input graph by at most k vertex disjoint paths in the complement of the input graph. More precisely, we show that if a graph has tree-width at most w and its complement is closed under Bondy-Chvatal closure, then it is possible to bound neighborhood diversity of the complement by a function of w only. A simpler proof where tree-depth is used instead of tree-width is also presented.
We unify and extend previous kernelization techniques in sparse classes [6,17] by defining water lilies and show how they can be used in bounded expansion classes to construct linear bikernels for (r, c)-Dominating Set, (r, c)-Scattered Set, Total r-Domination, r-Roman Domination, and a problem we call (r, [λ, μ])-Domination (implying a bikernel for r-Perfect Code). At the cost of slightly changing the output graph class our bikernels can be turned into kernels. We further demonstrate how these constructions can be combined to create 'multikernels', meaning graphs that represent kernels for mu…
In the classic TARGET SAT SELECTION problem, we are asked to minimise the number of nodes to activate so that, after the application of a certain propagation process, all nodes of the graph are active. Bazgan and Chopin [Discrete Optimization}, 14:170--182, 2014] introduced the opposite problem, named HARMLESS SET, in which they ask to maximise the number of nodes to activate such that not a single additional node is activated. In this paper we investigate how sparsity impacts the tractability of HARMLESS SET. Specifically, we answer two open questions posed by the aforementioned authors, name…
We study polynomial-time approximation schemes (PTASes) for constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs) such as Maximum Independent Set or Minimum Vertex Cover on sparse graph classes. Baker's approach gives a PTAS on planar graphs, excluded-minor classes, and beyond. For Max-CSPs, and even more generally, maximisation finite-valued CSPs (where constraints are arbitrary non-negative functions), Romero, Wrochna, and Živný [SODA'21] showed that the Sherali-Adams LP relaxation gives a simple PTAS for all fractionally-treewidth-fragile classes, which is the most general "sparsity" condition for which …
We investigate the parameterized complexity of generalisations and variations of the dominating set problem on classes of graphs that are nowhere dense. In particular, we show that the distance-d dominating-set problem, also known as the (k,d)-centres problem, is fixed-parameter tractable on any class that is nowhere dense and closed under induced subgraphs. This generalises known results about the dominating set problem on H-minor free classes, classes with locally excluded minors and classes of graphs of bounded expansion. A key feature of our proof is that it is based simply on the fact tha…
We show that the dominating set problem parameterized by solution size is fixed-parameter tractable (FPT) in graphs that do not contain the claw (K(1,3)), the complete bipartite graph on four vertices where the two parts have one and three vertices, respectively) as an induced subgraph. We present an algorithm that uses 2^O(k^2)n^O(1) time and polynomial space to decide whether a claw-free graph on n vertices has a dominating set of size at most k. Note that this parameterization of dominating set is W[2]-hard on the set of all graphs, and thus is unlikely to have an FPT algorithm for graphs i…
We show that #SAT is polynomial-time tractable for classes of CNF formulas whose incidence graphs have bounded symmetric clique-width (or bounded clique-width, or bounded rank-width). This result strictly generalizes polynomial-time tractability results for classes of formulas with signed incidence graphs of bounded clique-width and classes of formulas with incidence graphs of bounded modular treewidth, which were the most general results of this kind known so far.
The degeneracy of an $n$-vertex graph $G$ is the smallest number $d$ such that every subgraph of $G$ contains a vertex of degree at most $d$. We show that there exists a nearly-optimal fixed-parameter tractable algorithm for enumerating all maximal cliques, parametrized by degeneracy. To achieve this result, we modify the classic Bron--Kerbosch algorithm and show that it runs in time $O(dn3^{d/3})$. We also provide matching upper and lower bounds showing that the largest possible number of maximal cliques in an $n$-vertex graph with degeneracy $d$ (when $d$ is a multiple of 3 and $n\ge d+3$) i…
The causal graph of a planning instance is an important tool for planning both in practice and in theory. The theoretical studies of causal graphs have largely analysed the computational complexity of planning for instances where the causal graph has a certain structure, often in combination with other parameters like the domain size of the variables. Chen and Gimand#233;nez ignored even the structure and considered only the size of the weakly connected components. They proved that planning is tractable if the components are bounded by a constant and otherwise intractable. Their intractability…
We present a dynamic data structure representing a graph G, which allows addition and removal of edges from G and can determine the number of appearances of a graph of a bounded size as an induced subgraph of G. The queries are answered in constant time. When the data structure is used to represent graphs from a class with bounded expansion (which includes planar graphs and more generally all proper classes closed on topological minors, as well as many other natural classes of graphs with bounded average degree), the amortized time complexity of updates is polylogarithmic.
We show that the k-Dominating Set problem is fixed parameter tractable (FPT) and has a polynomial kernel for any class of graphs that exclude K_{i,j} as a subgraph, for any fixed i, j >= 1. This strictly includes every class of graphs for which this problem has been previously shown to have FPT algorithms and/or polynomial kernels. In particular, our result implies that the problem restricted to bounded- degenerate graphs has a polynomial kernel, solving an open problem posed by Alon and Gutner.
For a graph class $\mathcal{C}$, the $\mathcal{C}$-Edge-Deletion problem asks for a given graph $G$ to delete the minimum number of edges from $G$ in order to obtain a graph in $\mathcal{C}$. We study the $\mathcal{C}$-Edge-Deletion problem for $\mathcal{C}$ the permutation graphs, interval graphs, and other related graph classes. It follows from Courcelle's Theorem that these problems are fixed parameter tractable when parameterized by treewidth. In this paper, we present concrete FPT algorithms for these problems. By giving explicit algorithms and analyzing these in detail, we obtain algorit…
Meta-theorems for polynomial (linear) kernels have been the subject of intensive research in parameterized complexity. Heretofore, meta-theorems for linear kernels exist on graphs of bounded genus, $H$-minor-free graphs, and $H$-topological-minor-free graphs. To the best of our knowledge, no meta-theorems for polynomial kernels are known for any larger sparse graph classes; e.g., for classes of bounded expansion or for nowhere dense ones. In this paper we prove such meta-theorems for the two latter cases. More specifically, we show that graph problems that have finite integer index (FII) have …
The k-domination number of a graph is the minimum size of a set X such that every vertex of G is in distance at most k from X. We give a linear time constant-factor approximation algorithm for k-domination number in classes of graphs with bounded expansion, which include e.g. proper minor-closed graph classes, classes closed on topological minors or classes of graphs that can be drawn on a fixed surface with bounded number of crossings on each edge. The algorithm is based on the following approximate min-max characterization. A subset A of vertices of a graph G is d-independent if the distance…
The main problem in the area of graph property testing is to understand which graph properties are \emph{testable}, which means that with constantly many queries to any input graph $G$, a tester can decide with good probability whether $G$ satisfies the property, or is far from satisfying the property. Testable properties are well understood in the dense model and in the bounded degree model, but little is known in sparse graph classes when graphs are allowed to have unbounded degree. This is the setting of the \emph{sparse model}. We prove that for any proper minor-closed class $\mathcal{G}$,…
Inspired by the potential of improving tractability via gap- or above-guarantee parametrisations, we investigate the complexity of Dominating Set when given a suitable lower-bound witness. Concretely, we consider being provided with a maximal r-independent set X (a set in which all vertices have pairwise distance at least r + 1) along the input graph G which, for r >= 2, lower-bounds the minimum size of any dominating set of G. In the spirit of gap-parameters, we consider a parametrisation by the size of the 'residual' set R := V (G) \ N [X]. Our work aims to answer two questions: How does the…
