MSc thesis Computer Science Finding Optimal Tree Decompositions Tuukka Korhonen June 4, 2020 Faculty of Science University of Helsinki Supervisor(s) Assoc. Prof. Matti J¨arvisalo,Dr. Jeremias Berg Examiner(s) Assoc. Prof. Matti J¨arvisalo,Dr. Jeremias Berg Contact information P. O. Box 68 (Pietari Kalmin katu 5) 00014 University of Helsinki,Finland Email address:
[email protected].fi URL: http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/ HELSINGIN YLIOPISTO – HELSINGFORS UNIVERSITET – UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI Tiedekunta — Fakultet — Faculty Koulutusohjelma — Utbildningsprogram — Study programme Faculty of Science Computer Science Tekij¨a— F¨orfattare— Author Tuukka Korhonen Ty¨onnimi — Arbetets titel — Title Finding Optimal Tree Decompositions Ohjaajat — Handledare — Supervisors Assoc. Prof. Matti J¨arvisalo, Dr. Jeremias Berg Ty¨onlaji — Arbetets art — Level Aika — Datum — Month and year Sivum¨a¨ar¨a— Sidoantal — Number of pages MSc thesis June 4, 2020 94 pages, 1 appendix page Tiivistelm¨a— Referat — Abstract The task of organizing a given graph into a structure called a tree decomposition is relevant in multiple areas of computer science. In particular, many NP-hard problems can be solved in polynomial time if a suitable tree decomposition of a graph describing the problem instance is given as a part of the input. This motivates the task of finding as good tree decompositions as possible, or ideally, optimal tree decompositions. This thesis is about finding optimal tree decompositions of graphs with respect to several notions of optimality. Each of the considered notions measures the quality of a tree decomposition in the context of an application. In particular, we consider a total of seven problems that are formulated as finding optimal tree decompositions: treewidth, minimum fill-in, generalized and fractional hypertreewidth, total table size, phylogenetic character compatibility, and treelength.