A Complete Anytime Algorithm for Treewidth

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

A Complete Anytime Algorithm for Treewidth UAI 2004 GOGATE & DECHTER 201 A Complete Anytime Algorithm for Treewidth Vibhav Gogate and Rina Dechter School of Information and Computer Science, University of California, Irvine, CA 92967 fvgogate,[email protected] Abstract many algorithms that solve NP-hard problems in Arti¯cial Intelligence, Operations Research, In this paper, we present a Branch and Bound Circuit Design etc. are exponential only in the algorithm called QuickBB for computing the treewidth. Examples of such algorithm are Bucket treewidth of an undirected graph. This al- elimination [Dechter, 1999] and junction-tree elimina- gorithm performs a search in the space of tion [Lauritzen and Spiegelhalter, 1988] for Bayesian perfect elimination ordering of vertices of Networks and Constraint Networks. These algo- the graph. The algorithm uses novel prun- rithms operate in two steps: (1) constructing a ing and propagation techniques which are good tree-decomposition and (2) solving the prob- derived from the theory of graph minors lem on this tree-decomposition, with the second and graph isomorphism. We present a new step generally exponential in the treewidth of the algorithm called minor-min-width for com- tree-decomposition computed in step 1. In this puting a lower bound on treewidth that is paper, we present a complete anytime algorithm used within the branch and bound algo- called QuickBB for computing a tree-decomposition rithm and which improves over earlier avail- of a graph that can feed into any algorithm like able lower bounds. Empirical evaluation of Bucket elimination [Dechter, 1999] that requires a QuickBB on randomly generated graphs and tree-decomposition. benchmarks in Graph Coloring and Bayesian The majority of recent literature on Networks shows that it is consistently bet- the treewidth problem is devoted to ¯nd- ter than complete algorithms like Quick- ing constant factor approximation algo- Tree [Shoikhet and Geiger, 1997] in terms of rithms [Amir, 2001, Becker and Geiger, 2001]. Other cpu time. QuickBB also has good anytime heuristic algorithms include popular triangulation performance, being able to generate a bet- heuristics like min-degree, max-cardinality search ter upper bound on treewidth of some graphs and min-¯ll. These heuristics have no performance whose optimal treewidth could not be com- guarantees and the approximation computed by them puted up to now. can be exponentially bad. We discuss these heuristics in the Section 3. It is well known that the speed of a branch and 1 Introduction bound algorithm depends upon the quality of the lower bound used. In this paper, we have developed a new lower bound called minor-min-width that Given an undirected graph G and an integer k the is shown to produce a better lower bound than problem whether the treewidth of G is at most k is max-cardinality search developed recently by Brian known to be NP-complete [Arnborg et al., 1987]. In Lucena [Lucena, 2003]. We implemented a branch this paper, we develop a complete anytime algorithm and bound algorithm using minor-min-width as based on branch and bound search to solve the lower bound. However this implementation did not optimization version of this problem. In other words, terminate on some graphs having 20 vertices in 2 we are interested in the smallest such k. The problem days of cpu time. Some analysis revealed that this can also be rephrased as ¯nding a triangulation or naive algorithm can be improved with some clever tree-decomposition T of G such that the treewidth of modi¯cations along two directions: (1) Reducing the T is same as G. branching factor at each state, (2) Using pruning and A solution to this problem is important because 202 GOGATE & DECHTER UAI 2004 propagation rules to prune regions of the search space The width of a tree-decomposition is given by: maxi2I that can not be a part of a triangulation having a (jÂij ¡ 1). The treewidth of a graph G denoted by lower treewidth than the current best. tw(G) equals the minimum width over all possible tree We reduce the branching factor by using Dirac's decompositions of G. The treewidth of G is the mini- theorem which characterized triangulated graphs and mum k ¸ 0 such that G is a subgraph of a triangulated graph minor theory. Also, we derive various pruning graph H having a maximal clique of size k + 1. and propagation rules from the theory of graph De¯nition 2.3. A vertex v of G is simplicial if its minors and graph isomorphism. We call the resulting neighborhood induces a clique. A vertex v is almost algorithm QuickBB. simplicial if all but one of its neighbors induce a Prior to our work, the best existing com- clique. An ordering of the vertices ¼ = [v1; v2; : : : ; vn] plete algorithm for ¯nding optimal triangulation is called a perfect elimination ordering if for ev- is due to Shoikhet and Geiger(called Quick- ery 1 · i · n, vi is a simplicial vertex in G[X] where Tree [Shoikhet and Geiger, 1997]). Our empirical X = fvi; : : : ; vng. evaluation on randomly generated graphs shows De¯nition 2.4. A clique of size k + 1 is a k-tree of that QuickBB is superior to QuickTree. On some size k + 1.A k-tree of size n + 1 can be constructed randomly generated graphs with 100 vertices and from a k-tree of size n by taking the new vertex and treewidth bounded by 10, QuickBB appears to be making it adjacent to any clique of size k in the k-tree. 50 times faster than QuickTree. Being a branch and A subgraph of a k-tree is called a partial k-tree. bound algorithm, QuickBB also has good anytime properties. We were able to obtain better upper Lemma 2.5. The treewidth of a k-tree is k. The bounds on treewidth of some graphs in Dimacs Graph treewidth of a partial k-tree is at most k. coloring benchmarks and Bayesian Network repository even when the algorithm did not terminate. A characterization of the triangulated graphs is given by the following lemma. Lemma 2.6. A graph is triangulated i® there exists 2 De¯nitions and Preliminaries a perfect elimination ordering for it. Also, if a graph is triangulated then any simplicial vertex can start a Note that all the lemmas presented in this sec- perfect elimination ordering for it. tion can be found in a book on treewidth by Ton Kloks [Kloks, 1994]. All the graphs used in this pa- Another important property is due to Dirac. per are ¯nite, undirected, connected and simple. We Lemma 2.7. Any non-clique triangulated graph has denote an undirected graph by G(VG;EG) where VG at least two non-adjacent simplicial vertices. is the set of vertices of the graph and EG is the set of edges of the graph. The neighborhood of a vertex v The relation between the treewidth of a triangulated denoted NG(v) is the set of vertices that are neighbors graph and perfect elimination ordering is captured by of v. A chord of a cycle C is an edge not in C whose the following lemma. endpoints lie in C.A chordless cycle in G is a cycle of Lemma 2.8. Given any perfect elimination ordering length at least 4 in G that has no chord. f = [v1; : : : ; vn] of a chordal graph T , the treewidth of De¯nition 2.1. A graph is chordal or triangulated T is given by max(jN(vi)j j v 2 V; N(v)\fvi; : : : ; vng) if it has no chordless cycle. A graph M is a minor of a graph G if graph M can be obtained from a subgraph of G by edge contraction. A graph G0 = (V 0;E0) is called a subgraph of G if Edge contraction of an edge e = fu; vg is the operation V 0 ⊆ V and E0 ⊆ E. If W ⊆ V is a subset of vertices of replacing both u and v by a single vertex w such that then G[W ] denotes the subgraph induced by W .A the neighbors of u and v are neighbors of w except u clique is a graph G that is completely connected. A and v themselves. A relation between graph, its minor triangulation of a graph G is a graph H such that G and the treewidth of G is given by the following lemma. is a subgraph of H, H has the same set of vertices as G and H is chordal. Lemma 2.9. Let G be a graph and M be a minor of G. Then tw(G) ¸ tw(M). De¯nition 2.2. A tree decomposition of a graph G(V; E) is a pair (T;Â) where T = (I;F ) is a tree and We say that we eliminate a vertex v when we make  = fÂi j i 2 Ig is a family of subsets of V such that: v simplicial and remove it from the graph to obtain S 0 (1) i 2I Âi = V , (2)For each edge e = fu; vg 2 E a new graph G . This operation will be denoted by there exists an i 2 I such that both u and v belong elim(G; v) and it returns a graph G0 = (V n v; E [ 0 0 to Âi and (3) For all v 2 V , there is a set of nodes E ); where E = f(v1; v2)jv1; v2 2 N(v)g. Given a fi 2 Ijv 2 Âig forms a connected subtree of T . linear ordering f = [v1; : : : ; vn] of an undirected graph UAI 2004 GOGATE & DECHTER 203 G, a triangulation T of the G along the ordering can 4 Lower bound on treewidth be obtained as follows.
Recommended publications
  • On Treewidth and Graph Minors
    On Treewidth and Graph Minors Daniel John Harvey Submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy February 2014 Department of Mathematics and Statistics The University of Melbourne Produced on archival quality paper ii Abstract Both treewidth and the Hadwiger number are key graph parameters in structural and al- gorithmic graph theory, especially in the theory of graph minors. For example, treewidth demarcates the two major cases of the Robertson and Seymour proof of Wagner's Con- jecture. Also, the Hadwiger number is the key measure of the structural complexity of a graph. In this thesis, we shall investigate these parameters on some interesting classes of graphs. The treewidth of a graph defines, in some sense, how \tree-like" the graph is. Treewidth is a key parameter in the algorithmic field of fixed-parameter tractability. In particular, on classes of bounded treewidth, certain NP-Hard problems can be solved in polynomial time. In structural graph theory, treewidth is of key interest due to its part in the stronger form of Robertson and Seymour's Graph Minor Structure Theorem. A key fact is that the treewidth of a graph is tied to the size of its largest grid minor. In fact, treewidth is tied to a large number of other graph structural parameters, which this thesis thoroughly investigates. In doing so, some of the tying functions between these results are improved. This thesis also determines exactly the treewidth of the line graph of a complete graph. This is a critical example in a recent paper of Marx, and improves on a recent result by Grohe and Marx.
    [Show full text]
  • Treewidth I (Algorithms and Networks)
    Treewidth Algorithms and Networks Overview • Historic introduction: Series parallel graphs • Dynamic programming on trees • Dynamic programming on series parallel graphs • Treewidth • Dynamic programming on graphs of small treewidth • Finding tree decompositions 2 Treewidth Computing the Resistance With the Laws of Ohm = + 1 1 1 1789-1854 R R1 R2 = + R R1 R2 R1 R2 R1 Two resistors in series R2 Two resistors in parallel 3 Treewidth Repeated use of the rules 6 6 5 2 2 1 7 Has resistance 4 1/6 + 1/2 = 1/(1.5) 1.5 + 1.5 + 5 = 8 1 + 7 = 8 1/8 + 1/8 = 1/4 4 Treewidth 5 6 6 5 2 2 1 7 A tree structure tree A 5 6 P S 2 P 6 P 2 7 S Treewidth 1 Carry on! • Internal structure of 6 6 5 graph can be forgotten 2 2 once we know essential information 1 7 about it! 4 ¼ + ¼ = ½ 6 Treewidth Using tree structures for solving hard problems on graphs 1 • Network is ‘series parallel graph’ • 196*, 197*: many problems that are hard for general graphs are easy for e.g.: – Trees NP-complete – Series parallel graphs • Many well-known problems Linear / polynomial time computable 7 Treewidth Weighted Independent Set • Independent set: set of vertices that are pair wise non-adjacent. • Weighted independent set – Given: Graph G=(V,E), weight w(v) for each vertex v. – Question: What is the maximum total weight of an independent set in G? • NP-complete 8 Treewidth Weighted Independent Set on Trees • On trees, this problem can be solved in linear time with dynamic programming.
    [Show full text]
  • Arxiv:2006.06067V2 [Math.CO] 4 Jul 2021
    Treewidth versus clique number. I. Graph classes with a forbidden structure∗† Cl´ement Dallard1 Martin Milaniˇc1 Kenny Storgelˇ 2 1 FAMNIT and IAM, University of Primorska, Koper, Slovenia 2 Faculty of Information Studies, Novo mesto, Slovenia [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Treewidth is an important graph invariant, relevant for both structural and algo- rithmic reasons. A necessary condition for a graph class to have bounded treewidth is the absence of large cliques. We study graph classes closed under taking induced subgraphs in which this condition is also sufficient, which we call (tw,ω)-bounded. Such graph classes are known to have useful algorithmic applications related to variants of the clique and k-coloring problems. We consider six well-known graph containment relations: the minor, topological minor, subgraph, induced minor, in- duced topological minor, and induced subgraph relations. For each of them, we give a complete characterization of the graphs H for which the class of graphs excluding H is (tw,ω)-bounded. Our results yield an infinite family of χ-bounded induced-minor-closed graph classes and imply that the class of 1-perfectly orientable graphs is (tw,ω)-bounded, leading to linear-time algorithms for k-coloring 1-perfectly orientable graphs for every fixed k. This answers a question of Breˇsar, Hartinger, Kos, and Milaniˇc from 2018, and one of Beisegel, Chudnovsky, Gurvich, Milaniˇc, and Servatius from 2019, respectively. We also reveal some further algorithmic implications of (tw,ω)- boundedness related to list k-coloring and clique problems. In addition, we propose a question about the complexity of the Maximum Weight Independent Set prob- lem in (tw,ω)-bounded graph classes and prove that the problem is polynomial-time solvable in every class of graphs excluding a fixed star as an induced minor.
    [Show full text]
  • Handout on Vertex Separators and Low Tree-Width K-Partition
    Handout on vertex separators and low tree-width k-partition January 12 and 19, 2012 Given a graph G(V; E) and a set of vertices S ⊂ V , an S-flap is the set of vertices in a connected component of the graph induced on V n S. A set S is a vertex separator if no S-flap has more than n=p 2 vertices. Lipton and Tarjan showed that every planar graph has a separator of size O( n). This was generalized by Alon, Seymour and Thomas to any family of graphs that excludes some fixed (arbitrary) subgraph H as a minor. Theorem 1 There a polynomial time algorithm that given a parameter h and an n vertex graphp G(V; E) either outputs a Kh minor, or outputs a vertex separator of size at most h hn. Corollary 2 Let G(V; E) be an arbitrary graph with nop Kh minor, and let W ⊂ V . Then one can find in polynomial time a set S of at most h hn vertices such that every S-flap contains at most jW j=2 vertices from W . Proof: The proof given in class for Theorem 1 easily extends to this setting. 2 p Corollary 3 Every graph with no Kh as a minor has treewidth O(h hn). Moreover, a tree decomposition with this treewidth can be found in polynomial time. Proof: We have seen an algorithm that given a graph of treewidth p constructs a tree decomposition of treewidth 8p. Usingp Corollary 2, that algorithm can be modified to give a tree decomposition of treewidth 8h hn in our case, and do so in polynomial time.
    [Show full text]
  • The Size Ramsey Number of Graphs with Bounded Treewidth | SIAM
    SIAM J. DISCRETE MATH. © 2021 Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Vol. 35, No. 1, pp. 281{293 THE SIZE RAMSEY NUMBER OF GRAPHS WITH BOUNDED TREEWIDTH\ast NINA KAMCEVy , ANITA LIEBENAUz , DAVID R. WOOD y , AND LIANA YEPREMYANx Abstract. A graph G is Ramsey for a graph H if every 2-coloring of the edges of G contains a monochromatic copy of H. We consider the following question: if H has bounded treewidth, is there a \sparse" graph G that is Ramsey for H? Two notions of sparsity are considered. Firstly, we show that if the maximum degree and treewidth of H are bounded, then there is a graph G with O(jV (H)j) edges that is Ramsey for H. This was previously only known for the smaller class of graphs H with bounded bandwidth. On the other hand, we prove that in general the treewidth of a graph G that is Ramsey for H cannot be bounded in terms of the treewidth of H alone. In fact, the latter statement is true even if the treewidth is replaced by the degeneracy and H is a tree. Key words. size Ramsey number, bounded treewidth, bounded-degree trees, Ramsey number AMS subject classifications. 05C55, 05D10, 05C05 DOI. 10.1137/20M1335790 1. Introduction. A graph G is Ramsey for a graph H, denoted by G ! H, if every 2-coloring of the edges of G contains a monochromatic copy of H. In this paper we are interested in how sparse G can be in terms of H if G ! H.
    [Show full text]
  • Treewidth-Erickson.Pdf
    Computational Topology (Jeff Erickson) Treewidth Or il y avait des graines terribles sur la planète du petit prince . c’étaient les graines de baobabs. Le sol de la planète en était infesté. Or un baobab, si l’on s’y prend trop tard, on ne peut jamais plus s’en débarrasser. Il encombre toute la planète. Il la perfore de ses racines. Et si la planète est trop petite, et si les baobabs sont trop nombreux, ils la font éclater. [Now there were some terrible seeds on the planet that was the home of the little prince; and these were the seeds of the baobab. The soil of that planet was infested with them. A baobab is something you will never, never be able to get rid of if you attend to it too late. It spreads over the entire planet. It bores clear through it with its roots. And if the planet is too small, and the baobabs are too many, they split it in pieces.] — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (translated by Katherine Woods) Le Petit Prince [The Little Prince] (1943) 11 Treewidth In this lecture, I will introduce a graph parameter called treewidth, that generalizes the property of having small separators. Intuitively, a graph has small treewidth if it can be recursively decomposed into small subgraphs that have small overlap, or even more intuitively, if the graph resembles a ‘fat tree’. Many problems that are NP-hard for general graphs can be solved in polynomial time for graphs with small treewidth. Graphs embedded on surfaces of small genus do not necessarily have small treewidth, but they can be covered by a small number of subgraphs, each with small treewidth.
    [Show full text]
  • Bounded Treewidth
    Algorithms for Graphs of (Locally) Bounded Treewidth by MohammadTaghi Hajiaghayi A thesis presented to the University of Waterloo in ful¯llment of the thesis requirement for the degree of Master of Mathematics in Computer Science Waterloo, Ontario, September 2001 c MohammadTaghi Hajiaghayi, 2001 ° I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis. I authorize the University of Waterloo to lend this thesis to other institutions or individuals for the purpose of scholarly research. MohammadTaghi Hajiaghayi I further authorize the University of Waterloo to reproduce this thesis by photocopying or other means, in total or in part, at the request of other institutions or individuals for the purpose of scholarly research. MohammadTaghi Hajiaghayi ii The University of Waterloo requires the signatures of all persons using or photocopying this thesis. Please sign below, and give address and date. iii Abstract Many real-life problems can be modeled by graph-theoretic problems. These graph problems are usually NP-hard and hence there is no e±cient algorithm for solving them, unless P= NP. One way to overcome this hardness is to solve the problems when restricted to special graphs. Trees are one kind of graph for which several NP-complete problems can be solved in polynomial time. Graphs of bounded treewidth, which generalize trees, show good algorithmic properties similar to those of trees. Using ideas developed for tree algorithms, Arnborg and Proskurowski introduced a general dynamic programming approach which solves many problems such as dominating set, vertex cover and independent set. Others used this approach to solve other NP-hard problems.
    [Show full text]
  • Treewidth: Computational Experiments
    Takustraße 7 Konrad-Zuse-Zentrum D-14195 Berlin-Dahlem fur¨ Informationstechnik Berlin Germany ARIE M.C.A. KOSTER HANS L. BODLAENDER STAN P.M. VAN HOESEL Treewidth: Computational Experiments ZIB-Report 01–38 (December 2001) Treewidth: Computational Experiments Arie M.C.A. Kostery Hans L. Bodlaenderz Stan P.M. van Hoeselx December 28, 2001 Abstract Many NP-hard graph problems can be solved in polynomial time for graphs with bounded treewidth. Equivalent results are known for pathwidth and branchwidth. In recent years, several studies have shown that this result is not only of theoretical interest but can success- fully be applied to ¯nd (almost) optimal solutions or lower bounds for many optimization problems. To apply a tree decomposition approach, the treewidth of the graph has to be determined, independently of the application at hand. Although for ¯xed k, linear time algorithms exist to solve the decision problem \treewidth · k", their practical use is very limited. The computational tractability of treewidth has been rarely studied so far. In this paper, we compare four heuristics and two lower bounds for instances from applications such as the frequency assignment problem and the vertex coloring problem. Three of the heuristics are based on well-known algorithms to recognize triangulated graphs. The fourth heuristic recursively improves a tree decomposition by the computation of minimal separating vertex sets in subgraphs. Lower bounds can be computed from maximal cliques and the minimum degree of induced subgraphs. A computational analysis shows that the treewidth of several graphs can be identi¯ed by these methods. For other graphs, however, more sophisticated techniques are necessary.
    [Show full text]
  • Linearity of Grid Minors in Treewidth with Applications Through Bidimensionality∗
    Linearity of Grid Minors in Treewidth with Applications through Bidimensionality∗ Erik D. Demaine† MohammadTaghi Hajiaghayi† Abstract We prove that any H-minor-free graph, for a fixed graph H, of treewidth w has an Ω(w) × Ω(w) grid graph as a minor. Thus grid minors suffice to certify that H-minor-free graphs have large treewidth, up to constant factors. This strong relationship was previously known for the special cases of planar graphs and bounded-genus graphs, and is known not to hold for general graphs. The approach of this paper can be viewed more generally as a framework for extending combinatorial results on planar graphs to hold on H-minor-free graphs for any fixed H. Our result has many combinatorial consequences on bidimensionality theory, parameter-treewidth bounds, separator theorems, and bounded local treewidth; each of these combinatorial results has several algorithmic consequences including subexponential fixed-parameter algorithms and approximation algorithms. 1 Introduction The r × r grid graph1 is the canonical planar graph of treewidth Θ(r). In particular, an important result of Robertson, Seymour, and Thomas [38] is that every planar graph of treewidth w has an Ω(w) × Ω(w) grid graph as a minor. Thus every planar graph of large treewidth has a grid minor certifying that its treewidth is almost as large (up to constant factors). In their Graph Minor Theory, Robertson and Seymour [36] have generalized this result in some sense to any graph excluding a fixed minor: for every graph H and integer r > 0, there is an integer w > 0 such that every H-minor-free graph with treewidth at least w has an r × r grid graph as a minor.
    [Show full text]
  • The Bidimensionality Theory and Its Algorithmic
    The Bidimensionality Theory and Its Algorithmic Applications by MohammadTaghi Hajiaghayi B.S., Sharif University of Technology, 2000 M.S., University of Waterloo, 2001 Submitted to the Department of Mathematics in partial ful¯llment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY at the MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY June 2005 °c MohammadTaghi Hajiaghayi, 2005. All rights reserved. The author hereby grants to MIT permission to reproduce and distribute publicly paper and electronic copies of this thesis document in whole or in part. Author.............................................................. Department of Mathematics April 29, 2005 Certi¯ed by. Erik D. Demaine Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Thesis Supervisor Accepted by . Rodolfo Ruben Rosales Chairman, Applied Mathematics Committee Accepted by . Pavel I. Etingof Chairman, Department Committee on Graduate Students 2 The Bidimensionality Theory and Its Algorithmic Applications by MohammadTaghi Hajiaghayi Submitted to the Department of Mathematics on April 29, 2005, in partial ful¯llment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Abstract Our newly developing theory of bidimensional graph problems provides general techniques for designing e±cient ¯xed-parameter algorithms and approximation algorithms for NP- hard graph problems in broad classes of graphs. This theory applies to graph problems that are bidimensional in the sense that (1) the solution value for the k £ k grid graph (and similar graphs) grows with k, typically as ­(k2), and (2) the solution value goes down when contracting edges and optionally when deleting edges. Examples of such problems include feedback vertex set, vertex cover, minimum maximal matching, face cover, a series of vertex- removal parameters, dominating set, edge dominating set, r-dominating set, connected dominating set, connected edge dominating set, connected r-dominating set, and unweighted TSP tour (a walk in the graph visiting all vertices).
    [Show full text]
  • Tree-Decomposition Graph Minor Theory and Algorithmic Implications
    DIPLOMARBEIT Tree-Decomposition Graph Minor Theory and Algorithmic Implications Ausgeführt am Institut für Diskrete Mathematik und Geometrie der Technischen Universität Wien unter Anleitung von Univ.Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr.techn. Michael Drmota durch Miriam Heinz, B.Sc. Matrikelnummer: 0625661 Baumgartenstraße 53 1140 Wien Datum Unterschrift Preface The focus of this thesis is the concept of tree-decomposition. A tree-decomposition of a graph G is a representation of G in a tree-like structure. From this structure it is possible to deduce certain connectivity properties of G. Such information can be used to construct efficient algorithms to solve problems on G. Sometimes problems which are NP-hard in general are solvable in polynomial or even linear time when restricted to trees. Employing the tree-like structure of tree-decompositions these algorithms for trees can be adapted to graphs of bounded tree-width. This results in many important algorithmic applications of tree-decomposition. The concept of tree-decomposition also proves to be useful in the study of fundamental questions in graph theory. It was used extensively by Robertson and Seymour in their seminal work on Wagner’s conjecture. Their Graph Minors series of papers spans more than 500 pages and results in a proof of the graph minor theorem, settling Wagner’s conjecture in 2004. However, it is not only the proof of this deep and powerful theorem which merits mention. Also the concepts and tools developed for the proof have had a major impact on the field of graph theory. Tree-decomposition is one of these spin-offs. Therefore, we will study both its use in the context of graph minor theory and its several algorithmic implications.
    [Show full text]
  • A Polynomial Excluded-Minor Approximation of Treedepth
    A Polynomial Excluded-Minor Approximation of Treedepth Ken-ichi Kawarabayashi∗ Benjamin Rossmany National Institute of Informatics University of Toronto k [email protected] [email protected] November 1, 2017 Abstract Treedepth is a well-studied graph invariant in the family of \width measures" that includes treewidth and pathwidth. Understanding these invariants in terms of excluded minors has been an active area of research. The recent Grid Minor Theorem of Chekuri and Chuzhoy [12] establishes that treewidth is polynomially approximated by the largest k × k grid minor. In this paper, we give a similar polynomial excluded-minor approximation for treedepth in terms of three basic obstructions: grids, tree, and paths. Specifically, we show that there is a constant c such that every graph of treedepth ≥ kc contains one of the following minors (each of treedepth ≥ k): • the k × k grid, • the complete binary tree of height k, • the path of order 2k. Let us point out that we cannot drop any of the above graphs for our purpose. Moreover, given a graph G we can, in randomized polynomial time, find either an embedding of one of these minors or conclude that treedepth of G is at most kc. This result has potential applications in a variety of settings where bounded treedepth plays a role. In addition to some graph structural applications, we describe a surprising application in circuit complexity and finite model theory from recent work of the second author [28]. 1 Introduction Treedepth is a well-studied graph invariant with several equivalent definitions. It appears in the literature under various names including vertex ranking number [30], ordered chromatic number [17], and minimum elimination tree height [23], before being systematically studied under the name treedepth by Ossona de Mendes and Neˇsetˇril[20].
    [Show full text]